To return to our football team, Poulton, Lacey, Hall, and Manton are
local. There are several villages in Cheshire and Lancashire named
Poulton, i.e. the town or homestead (Chapter XIII) by the pool. Lacey
occurs in Domesday Book as de Laci, from some small spot in Normandy,
probably the hamlet of Lassy (Calvados). Hall is due to residence
near the great house of the neighbourhood. If Hall's ancestor's name
had chanced to be put down in Anglo-French as de la sale, he might now
be known as Sale, or even as Saul. Manton is the name of places in
Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire, so that this player, at any rate,
has an ancestral qualification for the East Midlands.
The only true occupative name in the list is Cook, for Earl is a
nickname. Cook was perhaps the last occupative title to hold its own
against the inherited name. Justice Shallow, welcoming Sir John
Falstaff, says--
"Some pigeons, Davy; a couple of short-legged hens, a joint of mutton,
and any pretty little tiny kickshaws. Tell William Cook" (2 Henry IV, v.
i.).
And students of the Ingoldsby Legends will remember that
"Ellen Bean ruled his cuisine.--He called her Nelly Cook."
(Nell Cook, 1. 32.)
There are probably a goodly number of housewives of the present day
who would be at a loss if suddenly asked for "cook's" name in full.
It may be noted that Lequeux means exactly the same, and is of
identical origin, archaic Fr. le queux, Lat. coquus, while Kew is
sometimes for Anglo-Fr. le keu, where keu is the accusative of queux
(Alternative Origins, Chapter I).
NICKNAMES
The nicknames are Earl, Bull, and Muddiman. Nicknames such as Earl
may have been acquired in various ways (Chapter XV). Bull and
Muddiman are singularly appropriate for Rugby scrummagers, though the
first may be from an inn or shop sign, rather than from physique or
character. It is equivalent to Thoreau, Old Fr. toreau (taureau).
Muddiman is for Moodyman, where moody has its older meaning of
valiant; cf. its German cognate mutig. The weather on the day in
question gave a certain fitness both to the original meaning and the
later form.
The above names are, with the exception of Hancock, Hudson, and
Muddiman, easy to solve; but it must not be concluded that every list
is as simple, or that the obvious is always right. The first page of
Bards Dictionary of Surnames might well serve as a danger-signal to
cocksure writers on this subject. The names Abbey and Abbott would
naturally seem to go back to an ancestor who lived in or near an and
to another who had been nicknamed the abbot.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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