Authors: Bill Bryson
English names based on places almost always had prepositions to begin with but these gradually disappeared, so that John of Preston became just John Preston, though occasionally they survive in names like Atwater and Underwood or as remnants in names like Noakes (a contraction of atten Oakes, or "by the oak trees") or Nash (for atten Ash, "by the ash tree"). A curious fact about names based
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on places is that they are so often obscure—mostly from places that few people have heard of. Why should there be so many more Middletons than Londons, so many more Worthingtons than Bris-tols? The main cities of medieval Britain—London, York, Norwich, Glasgow—are relatively uncommon as surnames even though many thousands of people lived there. To understand this seeming paradox you must remember that the purpose of surnames is to distinguish one person or family from the great mass of people. If a person called himself Peter of London, he would be just one of hundreds of such Peters and anyone searching for him would be at a loss. So as a rule a person would become known as Peter of London only if he moved to a rural location, where London
would
be a clear identifying feature, but that did not happen often. In the same way, those people named Farmer , probably owe their name to the fact that an ancestor left the farm, while names like French, Fleming, Welch, or Walsh (both from Welsh) indicate that the originator was not a resident of those places but rather an emigrant.
Another superficially puzzling thing is why many people have ecclesiastical
names
like Bishop, Monk, Priest, and Prior when such figures were presumably celibate and unable to pass on their names. The reason here is that part of the original name has prob-ably been lost. The full name may once have been the "Bishop's man" if he was a servant or "Priest's Hill" if that was where he lived.
The origins of other names are not immediately apparent be-cause they come from non-English sources. Russell was from the medieval French
roussell,
"red-haired," while Morgan is Welsh for white-haired. Sometimes strange literal meanings are hidden in innocuous-sounding names. Kennedy, means "ugly head" in Gaelic, Boyd means "yellow-faced or sickly," Campbell means
"crooked mouth." The same is equally true of other languages. As Mario Pei notes, Gorky means "bitter," Tolstoy means "fat," and Machiavelli means "bad nails." Cicero is Roman slang for a wart on the nose (it means literally "chickpea").
In America, the situation with surnames is obviously compli-cated by the much greater diversity of backgrounds of the people.
NAMES
Even so, 183 of the zoo most common last names in America are British. However, a few names that are common in America are noticeably less common in Britain. Johnson is the second most common name in the United States (after Smith), but comes much further down the list in Britain. The reason for this is of course the great influx of Swedes to America in the nineteenth century—though in fact Johnson is not a native Swedish name. It is an Americanizing of the Swedish Jonsson or Johansson. Another name much more often encountered in America than Britain is Miller. In Britain, millers were unpopular throughout much of history be-cause of their supposed tendency to cheat the farmers who brought them grain. So it was not a flattering name. A modern equivalent might be the name Landlord. Most Millers in America were in fact originally Muellers or Miillers. The German word had the same meaning but did not carry the same derisory connotations.
Many, perhaps most, immigrants to America modified their names in some way to accommodate American spellings and phon-ics. Often, with difficult Polish or Russian names, this was invol-untary; immigrants simply had new names given to them at their port of entry. But more often the people willingly made changes to blend into their adopted country more smoothly and to avoid the constant headache of having to spell their name to everyone. Far easier to change Pfoersching to Pershing, Wistinghausen to West-inghouse, Pappadimitracoupolos to Pappas, Niewhuis to New-house, Kuiper to Cooper, Schumacher to Shoemaker, Krankheit to Cronkite, Syigren to Seagren, Lindqvist to Lindquist, and so on. It wasn't just difficult Slavic and Germanic names that this happened with. Scots named McLeod generally changed the spelling of their name to make it conform with its pronunciation, McCloud, and those named McKay usually gave up telling people that it rhymed with
sky
(as it still does in Britain).
Sometimes people took the opportunity to get rid of undesirable surnames which had been imposed on their ancestors during pe-riods of subjugation. Often these were offensive—either because the giver had a wayward sense of humor or because he hoped to be bribed into making it something less embarrassing. For instance,
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the Greek name Kolokotronis translates as "bullet in the ass." But others kept their names—for instance, the Goldwaters, even though that name was long a synonym for urine.
Another change names sometimes underwent in America was to have the stress altered. For some reason, in American speech there is a decided preference to stress the last or next to last syllable in a person's name. Thus Italians coming to America who called them-selves "Es-PO-si-to" had the name changed to "Es-po-SI-to."
Again, this happened with British names as well. Purcell, Bernard, and Barnett, which are pronounced in Britain as "persul,"
"bernurd," and "barnutt," became in America "pur-SELL," "ber- NARD," and "bar-NETT." But this process wasn't extended to all names: Mitchell and Barnum, for instance, were left with the stress on the first syllable.
Over time most names have been variously battered and knocked about. We have already seen how the name Waddington was var-iously rendered as Wadigton, Wuldingdoune, Windidune, and so on. Shakespeare's grandfather usually called himself Shakestaff. *
Snooks might have started life as Sevenoaks, the name of a town in Kent. Backus might have been Bakehouse. James K. Polk, the eleventh U.S. president, was descended from people named Pol-lock. Few names haven't been changed at some time or other in their history. This is often most vividly demonstrated in place-names.
Cambridge, for instance, was called Grantanbrycge in the tenth century. But the conquering Normans found that a mouthful—they particularly had trouble with gr combinations—and began to spell it Cantebrigie. Then it became successively Caumbrigge, Cambrugge, and Caunbrige before finally arriving at its modern spelling. Centuries from now it may be something else again. By a similarly convoluted process Eboracum eventually metamorphosed into York.
These verbal transformations can be remarkably convoluted.
Brightlingsea, according to P. H. Reaney's
The
Origin
of English
* Entirely incidentally, a little-known fact about Shakespeare is that his father moved to Stratford-upon-Avon from a nearby village shortly before his son's birth. Had he not done so, the Bard of Avon would instead be known as the rather less ringing Bard of Snitterfield.
NAMES
Place Names,
has been spelled 404 ways since the first interloper began to tinker with the Celtic Brictrich. Moreover, because of varying influences a single root may have evolved into a variety of words—Brighton, Brixton, Brislington, and Bricklehampton, im-probable as it seems, all began life with the same name: Beorh-thelmes.
The successive waves of invading Celts, Romans, Danes, Vi-kings, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Normans all endlessly shaped and reshaped British place names. The result is that England pos-sesses some of the most resplendent place-names in the world—names that roll around on the tongue and fill the mouth like fine claret: Wendens Ambo, Saffron Walden, Gussage All Saints, Stock-ing Pelham, Farleigh Wallop, Dunton Bassett, Husbands Bos-worth. There are 30,000 place-names in Britain and at least half of them are arresting and distinctive—far more than can be accounted for by random activity. They are as integral a part of the glory of the British countryside as thatched cottages, wandering hedgerows, and meadows full of waving buttercups and darting butterflies. As with family names, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the British have such distinctive place-names not because they just accidentally evolved, but rather because the British secretly
like
living in places with names like Lower Slaughter and Great Snoring.
Certainly their spellings and pronunciations are often as unfath-omable as those of family names. Occasionally the spellings seem to defy pronunciation—as with Meopham, a town in Kent pro-nounced "meppam," or Auchtermuchty, a Scottish town pro-nounced "awk-ter-muck-tee --but more often it is the other way around: The spellings look simple and straightforward, so that the innocent traveler is lulled into a sense of security, little realizing what treacheries they hide, so that Postwick is "pozzick," Punc-knowle is "punnel," Keighley is "keethley," Holnicote is "hunney-cut." Cholmondeston is "chumson," Wyardisbury is "razebry,"
Wymondham
is
"windhum," Flawith is "floyth." Dent-de-Lion, a town in Kent, is pronounced "dandelion"—thus combining the old spelling and modern pronunciation of that pernicious weed.
Sometimes syllables are dropped out or blithely ignored, so that
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Browsholme is pronounced "brewsum," Wavertree becomes
"wawtree," Ludgvan is "ludge-un," Darlingscott is "darskut," and Culzean Castle is "cullayne." Lots of names have two or more pronunciations. Harewood in West Yorkshire has two pronuncia-tions: "harwood" for the stately home and "harewood" for the village that surrounds it. Hednesford, Staffordshire, can be pro-nounced either "hedjford" or "henssford." Shrewsbury can be
"shrooz-bree" or "shroze-bree." Athelstaneford in Scotland can be pronounced as spelled or as "elshanford." And at least one place has two spellings
and
two pronunciations—Frithsden/Friesden, Hertfordshire, which can be pronounced "frizdun" or "freezdun."
England has three villages called Houghton and each has a dif-ferent pronunciation—respectively "hoton," "hawton," and "how-ton." Oughtibridge, South Yorkshire, has four: "owtibrij,"
"awtibrij," "ootibrij," and otibrij." Dittisham, Devon, has three pronunciations: "dittisham," "dittisum," -"dittsum." Adwalton, West Yorkshire, is sometimes pronounced "Atherton" because the town was formerly called Heather Town. But perhaps the strangest of all is Okeford Fitzpaine, Dorset, which many locals pronounce—for reasons no one can begin to guess at—"fippeny ockford."
Sadly, it appears that names are more and more being pro-nounced as spelled—perhaps a consequence of increased mobility among the British. Pontefract, in West Yorkshire, was once pro-nounced "pumfrit," but now it is always pronounced as spelled.
The same fate has befallen Cirencester, which once was "sissiter"
but now is usually just "siren-sester." Grantham and Walthamstow are both pronounced with "th" sounds even though etymologically they were Grant-ham and Walt-hamstow, in which ways they were once pronounced. Curiously this does not hold true for the obscure town in Nottinghamshire called Gotham, from which New York City takes its nickname; the locals pronounce it -Gott-hum."
And all of this isn't even to begin to mention Wales where you can find towns and villages with names that look like Scrabble leftovers, among them Bwlchtocyn, Llwynddyrys, Cwmtwrch, Mwnt, Pwllheli, which are pronounced respectively—oh, to hell with it.
In America, obviously, there has been less time to knock the
NAMES
names around, but even so it has sometimes happened, usually as a result of making foreign names more palatable—changing the Ojibway Missikamaa into Michigan or the Dakota Indian gahiyena into Cheyenne. But occasionally it has happened for no real reason, rather in the English manner, as when Ricksburg, Idaho (named for one Thomas Ricks), transmogrified into Rexburg.
Nor has America had the time to come up with unpronounceable names, though there are a few around—notably Schohomogomoc Hill, New Hampshire (Algonquian for "place with fire markings near"), Natchitoches, Louisiana (pronounced "nak-uh-tosh"), and Schaghticoke, New York (pronounced "skat-uh-kohk"). However, there are many names that most Americans
think
they know how to pronounce that are actually pronounced differently by the locals.
If you get fifteen of the following twenty names right you can consider yourself a leading authority:
Boise, Idaho
Boyce-ee
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
Gettizburg
Pierre, South Dakota
Peer
Quincy, Massachusetts
Quinzy
Monticello, Virginia
Montisello
Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Lankus-ter
Biloxi, Mississippi
Buh-lux-ee
Yakima, Washington
Yak-im-uh
St. Ignace, Michigan
Saint Ig-nuss
Concord, Massachusetts and
New Hampshire
Conk-urd (or Conkit)
Arkansas River
Ar-kan-zus
Gloucester, Massachusetts
Gloss-ter
Milan, Michigan
Mile-un
Lima, Ohio
Lye-muh
Nevada, Iowa
Nuh-vay-da
Versailles, Tennessee
Vur-sales
Vienna, Georgia
Vye-enna
Houston, Ohio
How-stun
Montevideo, Minnesota
Monna-video
Cairo, Illinois
Kay-ro
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Often Americans of earlier generations found it easier to change the spellings of names rather than the pronunciations of outsiders.
Thus Worcester, Ohio, became Wooster and Hertford, Connecti-cut, became Hartford. Many French names were quite naturally Americanized—as with Notre Dame, Detroit, Des Plaines, and St.
Louis. Dutch names were equally problematic. Sometimes they required only a minor spelling adjustment, converting Haarlem to Harlem and Cape Mey to Cape May, but often they had to be pulled about like taffy until they became something altogether more palatable, so that De Kromme Zee became Gramercy and Vlacht Bos ("level forest") became Flatbush. In Florida by a similar process the Spanish Cayo Hueso ("bone island") became Key West.