Curiosities of Puritan Nomenclature

red but a generation or two before William came over. If any are found in the old English period, we may fee

d engrossed a third of the male population; yet Domesday Book has no Philip, no Thomas, only one Nicholas, and but a sprinkling of Johns. It was not long bef

d been reached. Those that survived only held on for bare existence. From the moment of William's advent, the names of the Norman bega

er dictionary of English personal names than there had been for four hundred years before, and than there has been in t

on, Peter, and Isaac from the Scriptures, and Richard, Robert, Walter, Henry, Guy, Roger, and Baldwin from the Teutonic list. Of female names, Matilda, Isabella, and Emma were first favourites, and Cecilia, Catharine, Margaret, and Gill

-wood, John the Wheelwright, John the Bigg, and John Richard's son, in every community. Among the middle and lower classes these did not become hereditary till so late as 1450 or 1500.[1] This was not enoug

ogether, till Olde John marries; Young John, my son, shall

aby, Leicestershi

as John, and John Picke, the chil

ugust the same John

gisters," adds that at this same time "one John Barker had three s

condly, the addition of pet desinences. Thus Emma became by the one practice simple Emm, by the other Emmott; and any number of boys in a small community might be entered in a register as Bartholomew, and yet preserve their

t Tyler's-we should now say Walter

Thoma venit, neq

simul, Hykke

m Bobbe juvat, n

d damnum Will

Davie strepit, com

medio non min

m Judde terit, d

viros vellit,

ew, Gilbert, Isaac, Nicholas, Robert, William, Gregory, David, Ro

evidence enough. The auth

tton in, and gr

nteresse, sat

arner, and h

re, and twayne o

ney man, and Hu

lane, and the cler

kere, and a

at such appellatives are rare, by comparison, in the present day. Tricks of this kind were not to be played with Bible names at the

ghts. In Edward I.'s reign John came forward. In a Wiltshire document containing 588 names, 92 are William, 88 John, 55 Richard, 48 Robert, 23 Roger, Geoffrey, Ralph, and Peter 16. A century later John was first. In 1347, out of 133 common councilmen for London, first convened, 35 were John, 17 William, 15 Thomas, (St. Thomas of Canterbury was now an institution), 10

tempt a category, but the surnames of to-day tell us much. Will was quite a distinct youth from Willot, Willot from Wilmot, Wilmot from Wilkin, and Wilkin from Wilcock. There might be half a dozen Johns about the farmstead, but

oduction of Bible names at the Reformation did them much harm. But the Reformation, and the English Bible combined, utterly overwhelmed the pet desinences, and they succumbed. Emmot and Hamlet lived till th