er name. Milton and Melton are often telescoped forms of
Middleton.

DIALECTIC VARIANTS

Dialectic variants must also be taken into account. Briggs and Rigg
represent the Northern forms of Bridges and Ridge, and Philbrick is a
disguised Fellbrigg. In Egg we have rather the survival of the Mid.
English spelling of Edge. Braid, Lang, Strang, are Northern variants
of Broad, Long, Strong. Auld is for Old while Tamson is for Thompson
and Dabbs for Dobbs (Robert). We have the same change of vowel in
Raper, for Roper. Venner generally means hunter, Fr. veneur, but
sometimes represents the West-country form of Fenner, the fen-dweller;
cf. Vidler for fiddler, and Vanner for Fanner, the winnower.

We all the difficulty we have in catching a new and unfamiliar name,
and the subterfuges we employ to find out what it really is. In such
cases we do not get the help from association and analogy which serves
us in dealing with language in general, but find ourselves in the
position of a foreigner or child hearing unfamiliar word for the first
time. We realize how many imperceptible shades there are between a
short i and a short e, or between a fully voiced g and a voiceless k,
examples suggested to me by my having lately understood a Mr. Riggs to
be a Mr. Rex.

We find occurring in surnames examples of those consonantal changes
which do not violate the great Phonetic law that such changes can only
occur regularly within the same group, i.e. that a labial cannot
alternate with a palatal, or a dental with either. It is thus that we
find b alternating with p, Hobbs and Hopps (Robert), Bollinger and
Pullinger, Fr. boulanger; g with k, Cutlack and Goodlake (Anglo-Sax.
Guthlac), Diggs and Dix (Richard), Gipps and Kipps (Gilbert), Catlin
and Galling (Catherine); j with ch, Jubb or Jupp and Chubb (Job); d
with t, Proud and Prout (Chapter XXII), Dyson and Tyson (Dionisia),
and also with th, Carrodus and Carruthers (a hamlet in Dumfries). The
alternation of c and ch or g and j in names of French origin is
dialectic, the c and g representing the Norman-Picard pronunciation,
e.g. Campion for Champion, Gosling for Joslin. In some cases we have
shown a definite preference for one form, e.g. Chancellor and
Chappell, but Carpenter and Camp. In English names c is northern, ch
southern, e.g. Carlton, Charlton, Kirk, Church.

There are also a few very common vowel changes. The sound er usually
became ar, as in Barclay (Berkeley),