(2 Henry IV, v.
i.).

And students of the Ingoldsby Legends will remember that

"Ellen Bean ruled his cuisine.--He called her Nelly Cook."

(Nell Cook, 1. 32.)

There are probably a goodly number of housewives of the present day
who would be at a loss if suddenly asked for "cook's" name in full.
It may be noted that Lequeux means exactly the same, and is of
identical origin, archaic Fr. le queux, Lat. coquus, while Kew is
sometimes for Anglo-Fr. le keu, where keu is the accusative of queux
(Alternative Origins, Chapter I).

NICKNAMES

The nicknames are Earl, Bull, and Muddiman. Nicknames such as Earl
may have been acquired in various ways (Chapter XV). Bull and
Muddiman are singularly appropriate for Rugby scrummagers, though the
first may be from an inn or shop sign, rather than from physique or
character. It is equivalent to Thoreau, Old Fr. toreau (taureau).
Muddiman is for Moodyman, where moody has its older meaning of
valiant; cf. its German cognate mutig. The weather on the day in
question gave a certain fitness both to the original meaning and the
later form.

The above names are, with the exception of Hancock, Hudson, and
Muddiman, easy to solve; but it must not be concluded that every list
is as simple, or that the obvious is always right. The first page of
Bards Dictionary of Surnames might well serve as a danger-signal to
cocksure writers on this subject. The names Abbey and Abbott would
naturally seem to go back to an ancestor who lived in or near an and
to another who had been nicknamed the abbot.

But Abbey is more often from the Anglo-French entry le abbe, the
abbot, and Abbott may be a diminutive of Ab, standing for Abel, or
Abraham, the first of which was a common medieval font-name. Francis
Holyoak describes himself on the title-page of his Latin Dictionary
(1612) as Franciscus de Sacra Quercu, but his name also represents the
holly oak, or holm oak (Tree Names, Chapter XII). On the other hand,
Holliman always occurs in early rolls as hali or holi man, i.e. holy
man.

MYTHICAL ETYMOLOGIES

It may be stated here, once for all, that etymologies of names which
are based on medieval latinizations, family mottoes, etc., are always
to be regarded with suspicion, as they involve the reversing of
chronology, or the explanation of a name by a pun which has been made
from it. We find Lilburne latinized as de insula tontis, as though it
were the impossible hybrid de l'isle burn, a