Gower's lines on the peasant rebels give us some idea of the names
which were most popular in the fourteenth century, and which have
consequently impressed themselves most strongly on our modern
surnames. It will be noticed that one member of the modern
triumvirate, Harry, or Hal, is absent. [Footnote: The three names
were not definitely established till the nineteenth century. Before
that period they had rivals. French says Pierre et Paul, and German
Heinz and Kunz, i.e. Heinrich and Conrad.] The great popularity of
this name probably dates from a rather later period and is connected
with the exploits of Henry V. Moreover, all the names, with the
possible exception of Hud, are of French introduction and occur rarely
before the Conquest. The old Anglo-Saxon names did survive,
especially in the remoter parts of the country, and have given us many
surnames (see ch. vii.), but even in the Middle Ages people had a
preference for anything that came over with the Conqueror. French
names are nearly all of German origin, the Celtic names and the Latin
names which encroached on them having been swept away by the Frankish
invasion, a parallel to the wholesale adoption of Norman names in
England. Thus our name Harvey, no longer usual as a font-name, is Fr.
Herod, which represents the heroic German name Herewig, to the second
syllable of which belongs such an apparently insignificant name as
Wigg.
MEDIEVAL FONT-NAMES
The disappearance of Latin names is not to be regretted, for the Latin
nomenclature was of the most unimaginative description, while the Old
German names are more like those of Greece; e.g. Ger. Ludwig, which
has passed into most of the European languages (Louis, Lewis,
Ludovico, etc), is from Old High Ger. hlut-wig, renowned in fight,
equivalent to the Greek Clytomachus, with one-half of which it is
etymologically cognate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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