Chapter XI

), and Tipler, which now suggests alcoholic excess, was, as late as the seventeenth century, the regular name for an alehouse keeper.

In a very large number of cases there is a considerable choice for the modern bearer of a name. Any Boon or Bone who wishes to assert that

Of Hereford's high blood he came, A race renown'd for knightly fame (Lord of the Isles, vi. 15),

can claim descent from de Bohun. While, if he holds that kind hearts are more than coronets, he has an alternative descent from some medieval le bon. This adjective, used as a personal name, gave also Bunn and Bunce; for the spelling of the latter name cf. Dance for Dans, and Pearce for Piers, the nominative of Pierre (Alternative Origins,