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English Surnames: Personal characteristics as surnames [1]

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Date: 2023-04-23  

In his book Adam’s Curse: The Science that Reveals Our Genetic Destiny, Bryan Sykes reports:

“The trouble was that, without surnames, it was almost impossible for the estate officers to keep track of events.”

Bryan Sykes also reports:

“Other than among the aristocracy, most English surnames were introduced around the thirteenth century, principally as a tool of estate management. By this time pretty much the whole country was divided into large feudal estates, a direct legacy of the Norman invasion in 1066 by William the Conqueror, who handed them out to his friends and supporters.”

In his book Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors, Nicholas Wade summarizes it this way:

“Commoners acquired surnames between AD 1250 and 1350, apparently for the convenience of feudal record keepers who needed to differentiate between tenant farmers with the same first names.”

Family names or surnames were created in many ways. Occupation and geography were common. In his book A Little Book of Language, David Crystal writes:

“If we wanted to distinguish between two people with the same name, we’d have to say something like ‘Edwin the baker’ or ‘Edwin from Derby’.”

One of the common ways was for the family name to reflect heritage, thus the suffix -son was added to the father’s name to create the surname (such as Johnson, Jameson, and so on). Since women were considered property at this time, they took their father’s or husband’s name or surname as their surname.

Personality and physical traits which were used to describe people also came to be used as surnames. David Crystal writes:

“Another way of making a surname was to describe the look of a person, or how they behaved, such as ‘John Long’ as opposed to ‘John Short’.”

A few of these surnames are shown below.

Bonner: this surname is from the Middle English nickname bonere, which means "gentle" or "handsome."

Broad: this surname is from the Old English brode, which means "strong person."

Corbyn: this is a nickname for someone having raven hair.

Daft: the word daft comes from the Middle English word daffle, which means "mild," "gentle," or "meek."

Goff: this is a Welsh surname derived from a nickname for someone with red hair. It is widespread in East Anglia.

Hardman: this is an Anglo-Saxon name that means “person with a tough character.” It could also mean a person who is stubborn and completes their tasks.

Horsedick: this means "brave horse rider."

Large: this is from Middle English/French, and it means "generous." It is from the Latin largus meaning “abundant; generous.” It did not acquire the meaning “of great size” until the sixteenth century.

Light: this surname is from the Middle English nickname for someone who is upbeat and cheerful.

Silly: this surname is from the Old English saelig, which means "a cheerful and happy person."

Smelly: this surname originated in Scotland as a nickname for people with a pleasant demeanor.

Weed: this is a nickname for someone who is irritable or irascible. It is from the Old English word wed, which means "fury" or "rage."

More about the English language

English Surnames: Occupational surnames

English Surnames: Habitational and geographic surnames

Origins of English: Remembering the dead

Origins of English: The Normans

The Origins of English: Celtic Influences

Origins of English: Kinds of meat

Origins of English: Riot, Sedition, and other words

Origins of English: Morticians and more

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