Douch, Ger. deutsch, Old High Ger. tiutisc, which,
through Old French tieis, has given Tyas. [Footnote: Tyars, or Tyers,
which Bardsley puts with this, seems to be rather Fr. Thiers, Lat.
tertius.]

But not every local name is to be taken at its face value. Holland is
usually from one of the Lancashire Hollands, and England may be for
Mid. Eng. ing-land, the land of Ing (cf. Ingulf, Ingold, etc.), a
personal name which is the first element in many place-names, or from
ing, a meadow by a stream. Holyland is not Palestine, but the
holly-land. Hampshire is often for Hallamshire, a district in
Yorkshire. Dane is a variant of Mid. Eng. dene, a valley, the
inhabitant of Denmark having given us Dench (Chapter XI) and Dennis
(le daneis). Visitors to Margate will remember the valley called the
Dane, which stretches from the harbour to St. Peters. Saxon is not
racial, but a perversion of sexton (Chapter XVII). Mr. Birdofredum
Sawin, commenting on the methods employed in carrying out the great
mission of the Anglo-Saxon race, remarks that--

"Saxons would be handy
To du the buryin' down here upon the Rio Grandy"

(Lowell, Biglow Papers).

The name Cockayne was perhaps first given derisively to a sybarite--

"Paris est pour le riche un pays de Cocagne" (Boileau),

but it may be an imitative form of Coken in Durham.

Names such as Morris, i.e. Moorish, or Sarson, i.e. Saracen (but also
for Sara-son), are rather nicknames, due to complexion or to an
ancestor who was mine host of the Saracen's Head. Moor is sometimes
of similar origin. Russ, like Rush, is one of the many forms of Fr.
roux, red-complexioned (Chapter II). Pole is for Pool, the native of
Poland being called Polack--

"He smote the sledded Polack on the ice" (Hamlet, I. i).

But the name Pollock is local (Renfrewshire).

COUNTIES AND TOWNS

As a rule it will be found that, while most of our counties have given
family names, sometimes corrupted, e.g. Lankshear, Willsher, Cant,
Chant, for Kent, with which we may compare Anguish for Angus, the
larger towns are rather poorly represented, the movement having always
been from country to town, and the smaller spot serving for more exact
description. An exception is Bristow (Bristol), Mid. Eng. brig-stow,
the place on the bridge, the great commercial city of the west from
which so many medieval seamen hailed; but the name is sometimes from
Burstow (Surrey), and there were possibly smaller places cal