Another Latin word of the same kind which gave us some Christian names was _Beo_ ("I bless"). From part of this verb, _Beatus_ ("blessed"), there was an old English name, _Beata_, but no girl or woman seems to have been called by it since the seventeenth century. _Beatrix_ and _Beatrice_ also come from this. The name _Benedict_, which sometimes became in English _Bennet_, came from another word like this, _Benignus_ ("kind"). _Boniface_, from the Latin _Bonifacius_ ("doer of good deeds"), was a favourite name in the early Church, and the name of a great English saint; but it is not used in England now, though there is still the Italian name, _Bonifazio_, which comes from the same word. Both Christian names and surnames have been taken from the Latin _Dies Natalis_, or "Birthday of our Lord." The French word for Christmas, _Noel_, comes from this, and, as well as _Natalie_, is used as a Christian name. _Noel_ is found, too, both as a Christian name and surname in England. At one time English babies were sometimes christened _Christmas_, but this is never used as a Christian name now, though a few families have it as a surname. Perhaps the most peculiar Christian names that have ever been were the long names which some of the English Puritans gave their children in the seventeenth century. Often they gave them whole texts of Scripture as names, so that at least one small boy was called "Bind their nobles in chains and their kings in fetters of iron." Let us hope his relatives soon found some other name to call him "for short." Everybody has heard of the famous Cromwellian Parliament, which would do nothing but talk, and which was called the "Barebones Parliament," after one of its members, who not only bore this peculiar surname, but was also blessed with the "Christian" name of _Praise-God_. Cromwell grew impatient at last, and Praise-God Barebones and the other talkers suddenly found Parliament dissolved. These names were not, as a rule, handed on from father to son, and soon died out, though in America even to-day we get Christian names somewhat similar, but at least shorter--names like _Willing_. It is often easier to see how we got our Christian names than how we got our surnames. As we have seen, there was a time when early peoples had only first names. The Romans had surnames, or _cognomina_, but the barbarians who won Europe from them had not. In England surnames were not used until nearly a hundred years after the Norman Conquest, and then only by kings and nobles. The common people in England had, however, nearly all got them by the fourteenth century; but in Scotland many people were still without surnames in the time of James I., and even those who had them could easily change one for another. Once a man got a surname it was handed on to all his children, as surnames are to-day. It is interesting to see in how many different ways people got their surnames. Sometimes this is easy, but it is more difficult in other cases.