Chapter I

) of garçon--

"Gars, a lad, boy, stripling, youth, yonker" (Cotgrave).

Bardsley explains Twentyman as an imitative corruption of twinter-man, the man in charge of the twinters, two-year-old colts. This may be so, but there is a German confectioner in Hampstead called Zwanziger, and there are Parisians named Vingtain. Lover is confirmed by the French surnames Amant and Lamoureux, and Wellbeloved by Bienaimé. Allways may be the literal equivalent of the French name Partout. On the other hand, the name Praisegod Barebones has been wrongly fixed on an individual whose real name was Barbon or Barborne.

It may seem strange that the nickname, conferred essentially on the individual, and often of a very offensive character, should have persisted and become hereditary. But schoolboys know that, in the case of an unpleasant nickname, the more you try to pull it off, the more it sticks the faster. Malapert and Lehideux are still well represented in the Paris Directory. Many objectionable nicknames have, however, disappeared, or have been so modified as to become inoffensive.

Sometimes such disappearance has resulted from the depreciation in the meaning of a word, e.g. le lewd, the layman, the unlettered, was once as common as its opposite le learned, whence the name Larned. But many uncomplimentary names are no longer objected to because their owners do not know their earlier meanings. A famous hymn-writer of the eighteenth century bore all unconsciously a surname that would almost have made Rabelais blush. Drinkdregs, Drunkard, Sourale, Sparewater, Sweatinbed, etc. have gone, but we still have Lusk--

"Falourdin, a luske, loot, lurden, a lubberlie sloven, heavie sot, lumpish hoydon" (Cotgrave)--

and many other names which can hardly have gratified their original possessors.

A very interesting group of surnames consists of those which indicate degrees of kinship or have to do with the relations existing between individuals. We find both Master and Mann, united in Masterman, meaning the man in the service of one locally known as the master. With this we may compare Ladyman, Priestman, etc. But Mann is often of local origin, from the Isle of Man. In some cases such names are usually found with the patronymic -s, e.g. Masters, Fellows, while in others this is regularly absent, e.g. Guest, Friend. The latter name is sometimes a corruption of Mid. Eng. fremed, stranger, cognate with Ger. fremd, so that opposite terms, which we find regularly contrasted in Mid. Eng. "frend and fremed," have become absorbed in one surname.

The frequent occurrence of Fellows is due to its being sometimes for the local Fallows. From Mid. Eng. fere, a companion, connected with faren, to travel, we get Littlefair and Playfair. In Wyclif's Bible we read that Jephthah's daughter--

"Whanne sche hadde go with hir felowis and pleiferis, sche biwept hir maydynhed in the hillis" (Judges xi. 38).

Springett is for springald, and Arlett is Mid. Eng. harlot, fellow, rascal, a word which has changed its gender and meaning--

"He was a gentil harlot and a kynde, A betre felawe sholde men noght fynde."

(A, 647.)

KINSHIP

In surnames taken from words indicating family relationship we come across some survivals of terms no longer used, or occurring only in rustic dialect. The Mid. Eng. eme, uncle, cognate with Ger. Oheim, has given Eames. In Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, the heroine addresses Pandarus as "uncle dere" and "uncle mine," but also uses the older word--

"'In good feith, em,' quod she, 'that liketh me'" (ii. 162);

and the word is used more than once by Scott--

"Didna his eme die. . . wi' the name of the Bluidy Mackenzie?"

(Heart of Midlothian, ch. xii.)

It is also one of the sources of Empson, which thus corresponds to Cousins or Cozens. In Neame we have a prosthetic n- due to the frequent occurrence of min eme (cf. the Shakespearean nuncle, Lear, i. 4). The names derived from cousin have been reinforced by those from Cuss, i.e. Constant or Constance (