n (Bonn, 1910). The comparative method
which I have adopted, especially in explaining nicknames (ch. xxi),
will be found, I think, to clear up a good many dark points. Of books
on names published in this country, only Bardsley's Dictionary has
been of any considerable assistance, though I have gleaned some scraps
of information here and there from other compilations. My real
sources have been the lists of medieval names found in Domesday Book,
the Pipe Rolls, the Hundred Rolls, and in the numerous historical
records published by the Government and by various antiquarian
societies.

ERNEST WEEKLEY.

Nottingham, September 1913

The following dictionaries are quoted without further reference:

Promptorium Parvulorum (1440), ed. Mayhew (E.E.T.S.; 1908).

PALSGRAVE, L'Esclarcissement de la langue francoyse (1530), ed. Genin
(Paris, 1852).

COOPER, Thesaurus Lingua Romanae et Britannicae (London; 1573).

COTGRAVE A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues

(London, 1611).

The Middle English quotations, except where otherwise stated, are from
Chaucer, the references being to the Globe edition.

CHAPTER I. OF SURNAMES IN GENERAL

"The French and we termed them Surnames, not because they are the
names of the Sire, or the father, but because they are super-added to
Christian names."

(CAMDEN, Remains concerning Britain.)

The study of the origin of family names is at the same time quite
simple and very difficult. Its simplicity consists in the fact that
surnames can only come into existence in certain well-understood ways.
Its difficulty is due to the extraordinary perversions which names
undergo in common speech, to the orthographic uncertainty of our
ancestors, to the frequent coalescence of two or more names of quite
different Origin, and to the multitudinous forms which one single name
can assume, such forms being due to local pronunciation, accidents of
spelling, date of adoption, and many minor causes. It must always
remembered that the majority of our surnames from the various dialects
of Middle English, i.e. of a language very different from our own in
spelling and sound, full of words that are now obsolete, and of others
which have completely changed their form and meaning.

If we take any medieval roll of names, we see almost at a glance that
four such individuals as--

John filius Simon

William de la Moor

Richard le Spicer

Robert le Long

exhaust the possibilities o