"Names also have been taken of civil honours, dignities and estate, as
King, Duke, Prince, Lord, Baron, Knight, Valvasor or Vavasor, Squire,
Castellon, partly for that their ancestours were such, served such,
acted such parts; or were Kings of the Bean, Christmas-Lords, etc."
(Camden).
We find corresponding names in other languages, and some of the French
names, usually preceded by the definite article, have passed into
English, e.g. Lempriere, a Huguenot name, and Leveque, whence our
Levick, Vick, Veck (Chapter III). Baron generally appears as Barron,
and Duke, used in Mid. English of any leader, is often degraded to
Duck, whence the dim. Duckett. But all three of these names can also
be referred to Marmaduke.
It would be tempting to put Palsgrave in this class. Prince Rupert,
the Pfalzgraf, i.e. Count Palatine, was known as the Palsgrave in his
day, but I have not found the title recorded early enough.
With Lord we must put the northern Laird, and, in my opinion, Senior;
for, if we notice how much commoner Young is than Old, and Fr. Lejeune
than Levieux, we must conclude that junior, a very rare surname, ought
to be of much more frequent occurrence than Senior, Synyer, a fairly
common name. There can be little doubt that Senior is usually a
latinization of the medieval le seigneur, whence also Saynor. Knight
is not always knightly, for Anglo-Sax. cniht means servant; cf. Ger.
Knecht. The word got on in the world, with the consequence that the
name is very popular, while its medieval compeers, knave, varlet,
villain, have, even when adorned with the adj. good, dropped out of
the surname list, Bonvalet, Bonvarlet, Bonvillain are still common
surnames in France. From Knight we have the compound Road-night, a
mounted servitor. Thus Knight is more often a true occupative name,
and the same applies to Dring or Dreng, a Scandinavian name of similar
meaning.
Other names from the middle rungs of the social ladder are also to be
taken literally, e.g. Franklin, a freeholder, Anglo-Fr. frankelein--
"How called you your franklin, Prior Aylmer?"
"Cedric," answered the Prior, "Cedric the Saxon"
(Ivanhoe, ch. i.)--
Burgess, Freeman, Freeborn. The latter is sometimes for Freebairn and
exists already as the Anglo-Saxon personal name Freobeorn. Denison
(Chapter II) is occasionally an accommodated form of denizen,
Anglo-Fr. deinzein, a burgess enjoying the privileges belonging to
those who lived "deinz (in) la cite." In 1483 a certain Edward
Jhonson--
"Sued to be mayde Denison for fer of ye payment of ye subsedy."
(Letter to Sir William Stonor, June 9, 1483.)
Bond is from Anglo-Sax, bonda, which means simply agriculturist. The
word is of Icelandic origin and related to Boor, another word which
has deteriorated and is rare as a surname, though the cognate Bauer is
common enough in Germany. Holder is translated by Tennant. For some
other names applied to the humbler peasantry see Chapter XIII.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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