Chapter V

), and many others to which I have ascribed a continental origin, are found occasionally in England before the Conquest, but the weight of evidence shows that they were either adopted in England as French names or were corrupted in form by the Norman scribes and officials. To take other examples, our Tibbald, Tibbles, Tibbs suggest the Fr. Thibaut rather than the natural development of Anglo-Sax. Thiudbeald, i.e. Theobald; and Ralph, Relf, Roff, etc., show the regular Old French development of Raedwulf, Radolf. Tibaut Wauter, i.e. Theobald Walter, who lived in Lancashire in 1242, had both his names in an old French form.

ANGLO-SAXON NICKNAMES

As a matter of fact, the various ways of forming nicknames or descriptive names, are all used in the pre-Conquest personal names. We find Orme, i.e. serpent or dragon (cf. Great Orme's Head), Wulf, i.e. Wolf, Hwita, i.e. White, and its derivative Hwiting, now Whiting, Saemann, i.e. Seaman, Bonda, i.e. Bond, Leofcild, dear child, now Leif child, etc. But, except the case of Orme, so common as the first element of place-names, I doubt the survival of these as purely personal names into the surname period and regard White, Seaman, Bond, Leif child rather as new epithets of Mid. English formation. Whiting is of course Anglo-Saxon, -ing being the regular patronymic suffix. Cf. Browning, Benning, Dering, Dunning, Gunning, Hemming, Kipping, Manning, and many others which occur in place-names. But not all names in -ing are Anglo-Saxon, e.g. Baring is German; cf. Behring, of the Straits; and Jobling is Fr. Jobelin, a double dim. of Job.

I will now give a few examples of undoubted survival of these Anglo-Saxon compounds, showing how the suffixes have been corrupted and simplified. Among the commonest of these suffixes are -beald, -beorht, -cytel (