Another mention in this newsletter of the Hall of Names Scam leads us to remember that when in April we quoted from Cosmo Innes we intended to return with further observations on the origins of surnames, particularly to emphasise the arbitrary nature of their selection, and thus to highlight the dangers of analysing their adoption too deeply.

If two elementary facts are grasped firmly, much of the fiction sold by the scam merchants can be exposed immediately.  The first is that hereditary surnames were unknown in the British Isles before the Norman invasion.  The second is that while owners of estates could derive their surnames from them, men did not give territories their own names (although, of course, villages and farms could derive a name from an owner, as the possessive "s" reveals in such as Hagardeston, Johnston, Mackieston).

In the history of his own family, written a century ago, General Wrottesley noted that it was largely a matter of chance whether his hereditary surname would become Verdon from the family's Norman roots, or Wrottesley from its English lordship, or Symons from his ancestor Simon.  The significance of this is that during the 13th century, when surnames started to become fixed for the descendants of a family, there were still large numbers of men whose Christian names were Saxon.  When these became the basis of a patronymic passed down for the future generations, interpreters in the future could easily be misled.

In 1858 the Camden Society in London published "The Domesday Book of St Pauls" in which are listed the names of the peasants living in its various manors in 1222.  It is clear that Christian names were beginning to follow the Norman fashion.  For example, a man with the old English name of Aethelward (Ailwardus) gives to his three sons the Norman names of Walter, Ralf and Geoffrey.  Their neighbour, a bondsman holding five acres, is Ricardus Godwini, Richard the son of Godwin (Godwin having been in the pre-Conquest England of 1066 one of the most popular Christian names in the kingdom).  If at this point the surname becomes standardised for future generations as Godwin or Goodwin, a few centuries later some researcher will claim a Saxon origin for the family.  But if the standardisation of the surname occurs in the next generation, it will be Richards, not Godwin, and that same researcher will be ready to pronounce the family as Welsh in origin.

We can stay with the Godwin name to illustrate the errors further. In 1891 "The Goodwins of Hartford, Connecticut" was published in America.  It claims -

The family name Goodwin is one which has been, and is, very widely distributed not only over England, but over most of the northern countries of Europe, and instances of its occurrence are to be met with in very early times.  As far back as the fifth century we met with it in Germany (Pertz, Monumenta Germanica, ix, 189) in the forms Gudwin and Godwin.

Professor Freeman, one of an eminent group of historians who broke down the myths nurtured and propagated during the last century, explained -  In many cases the process has been simply this.  A man bears as his surname one of the ancient English names which have gone out of use as Christian names.  He finds in early English history some one who bears that name as a Christian name.  He first mistakes the Christian name for a surname, and fancies that the ancient worthy bore the same surname, perhaps an unusual one, as himself. Having got thus far, it would be almost impossible to keep himself back from the next step, to refrain from claiming the ancient worthy as a forefather.

Of course, this is not the excuse of The Hall of Names.  That operation follows simple market principles, to wit ~ Everyone wants a pre-1066 surname, so everyone shall have a pre-1066 surname, even if we have to invent it.