English Surnames: Their Sources and SignificationsBardsley, Charles Wareing Endell
History
English Surnames: Their Sources and Significations
Bardsley, Charles Wareing Endell
Names, English; Names, Personal -- English
Ere the morn the east has crimsoned,
When the stars are twinkling there,
(As they did in Watts’s Hymns, and
Made him wonder what they were.)
This, too, it will be seen, as well as ‘Water,’ still abides with us in
its own or an extended guise, for our ‘Watts’ and ‘Waters,’ ‘Watsons’
and ‘Watersons,’ ‘Watkins’ and ‘Watkinsons,’ would muster strongly if in
conclave assembled. Our ‘Waltrots,’ though not so numerous, are but the
ancient ‘Walterot.’ As a Christian name Walter stands low now-a-days.
‘Tonkin,’ ‘Tonson,’ and ‘Townson’ (found in such an entry as ‘Jane
Tounson’) remind us of ‘Anthony,’[39] a name previous to the Reformation
popular as that possessed by the great ascetic of the fourth century. A
curious phrase got connected with St. Anthony, that of ‘tantony-pig.’ It
is said that monks attached to monasteries dedicated to this saint had
the privilege of allowing their swine to feed in the streets. These
habitually following those who were wont to offer greens to them, gave
rise to the expression, ‘To follow like a Tantony-pig.’ Thus, in ‘The
good wyfe wold a pylgremage,’ it is said—
When I am out of the towne,
Look that thou be wyse,
And run thou not from hous to hous,
Like a nantyny grice.
The connection between St. Anthony and swine, which gave the good monks
this benefit, seems, in spite of many wild guesses, to have arisen from
the mere fact of his dwelling so long in the woodlands. As Barnabe Googe
has it—
The bristled hogges doth Antonie
Preserve and cherish well,
Who in his lifetime always did
In woodes and forestes dwell.[40]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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