A great many English surnames were taken from places. _Street_, _Ford_, _Lane_, _Brooke_, _Styles_, are names of this kind. Sometimes they were prefixed by the Old English _atte_ ("at") or the French _de la_ ("of the"), but these prefixes have been dropped since. _Geoffrey atte Style_ was the Geoffrey who lived near the stile--and so on. Nearly all the names ending in _hurst_ and _shaw_ are taken from places. A _hurst_ was a wood or grove; a _shaw_ was a shelter for fowls and animals. The chief thing about a man who got the surname of _Henshaw_ or _Ramshaw_ was probably that he owned, or had the care of, such a shelter for hens or rams. Names ending in _ley_ generally came into existence in the same way, a _ley_ being also a shelter for domestic animals. So we have _Horsley_, _Cowley_, _Hartley_, _Shipley_ (from "sheep"). Sometimes the name was taken from the kind of trees which closed such a shelter in, names like _Ashley_, _Elmsley_, _Oakley_, _Lindley_, etc. Surnames as well as Christian names were often taken from the names of saints. From such a beautiful name as _St. Hugh_ the Normans had _Hugon_, and from this we get the rather commonplace names of _Huggins_, _Hutchins_, _Hutchinson_, and several others. So _St. Clair_ is still a surname, though often changed into _Sinclair_. St. Gilbert is responsible for the names _Gibbs_, _Gibbons_, _Gibson_, etc. Sometimes in Scotland people were given, as Christian names, names meaning _servant_ of Christ, or some saint. The word for servant was _giollo_, or _giolla_. It was in this way that names like _Gilchrist_, _Gilpatrick_, first came to be used. They were at first Christian names, and then came to be passed on as surnames. So _Gillespie_ means "servant of the bishop." Some surnames, though they seem quite English now, show that the first member of the family to bear the name was looked upon as a foreigner. Such names are _Newman_, _Newcome_, _Cumming_ (from _cumma_, "a stranger"). Sometimes the nationality to which the stranger belonged is shown by the name. The ancestors of the people called _Fleming_, for instance, must have come from Flanders, as so many did in the Middle Ages. The _Brabazons_ must have come from Brabant. Perhaps the most peculiar origin of all belongs to some surnames which seem to have come from oaths or exclamations. The fairly common names _Pardoe_, _Pardie_, etc., come from the older name _Pardieu_, or "By God," a solemn form of oath. We have, too, the English form in the name _Bigod_. Names like _Rummiley_ come from the old cry of sailors, _Rummylow_, which they used as sailors use "Heave-ho" now. But many chapters could be written on the history of names. This chapter shows only some of the ways in which we got our Christian names and surnames. CHAPTER III. STORIES IN THE NAMES OF PLACES.