Names: and Their Meaning; A Book for the Curious. Leopold Wagner
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which have now reached a nineteenth edition. But it is not to an examination of the dictionary words of the English language that the present volume is devoted. Bearing in mind that several excellent works already exist on this subject, the author has occupied himself in the following pages exclusively with the etymology, and significance of Names—of personal names, comprising Surnames, Sobriquets, Pseudonyms, Nicknames, Class Names, and Professional Designations; of names of places, including the Countries of the World, with the principal Seas, Islands, Gulfs, Straits, &c., the United States of North America, the Counties of England and Wales, and particularly the Districts, Streets, Squares, Churches, and Public Buildings of London; of the names of Religious Sects and Political Factions; of the names of Inns and Taverns; in addition to the names of an infinite number of objects with which everyone is familiar, but whose actual significance is comprehended only by a few.
As to the utility of such a work, a brief glance into these pages may convince the reader that the subject of Names is fraught with much popular interest. Take the names of London streets. How many among the thousands who follow their daily occupations within sight of the gilt cross of St. Paul’s, ever reflect that the name of each street they frequent and pass by the way, points to the origin of the street itself; and that, were they to cultivate a practical acquaintance with those names, their knowledge of English History and Sociology might be considerably enlarged, with a result that they would be brought to ask themselves at length how they could have been possessed of “souls so dead” as never to have entered upon such a profitable field of inquiry before? Whitefriars, Blackfriars, and Austin Friars, carry us back in imagination to the days of yore; the friars have long returned to the dust, but the localities they inhabited are still identified with their existence by the names they bear. Yet these are possibly the only thoroughfares in the City—with the exception of such as have derived their names from a neighbouring church, public building, or private mansion—concerning which the average Londoner can express himself with any degree of certainty: if he venture a guess at the rest, it is safe to assert that he will be open to correction. The like observation applies to public buildings.
If the question were asked, for example, why the well-known Ships’ Registry Offices over the Royal Exchange are universally referred to as “Lloyd’s,” ninety-nine out of every hundred City men would avail themselves of the very plausible suggestion that the system of Marine Insurance was first established, either there or elsewhere, by some person named Lloyd. True, a certain Edward Lloyd had a remote connection with the enterprise; but he was a coffee-house keeper, who probably knew no more about ships and their tonnage than “Jonathan,” another noted London coffee-house keeper, after whom the Stock Exchange was formerly designated, knew about “bulls” and “bears.” Again, it is not every one who could account, off hand, for such familiar names as Scotland Yard, Bedlam, Doctors’ Commons, the Charterhouse, the churches of St. Mary-Axe, St. Clement-Danes, St. Hallow’s-Barking, or St. Catherine Cree. A few barristers would, doubtless, be in a position to inform us wherefore our seminaries for the study of the law were originally styled “Inns of Court”; but the ordinary inquirer, left to his own resources, might find the problem somewhat difficult to solve. Surely they were not at one time inns? and if so, whence came the designation Inns of Court? Did the Court flunkeys patronize them, perhaps? Or, more likely, did the sovereign, attended by the Court, take a fancy to sleeping beneath the roof of each for once in a way, after the manner of Queen Elizabeth? And, speaking about inns, every Londoner is, of course, aware of the one-time existence of “La Belle Sauvage” on the north side of Ludgate Hill, albeit the origin of this sign has generally been ascribed to Pocahontas, of Virginia, who accompanied her husband, John Rolfe, back to England in the year 1616, and, as tradition has it, put up at this famous old coaching-house. Moreover, Messrs. Cassell and Co., whose premises occupy the site, and are approached from La Belle Sauvage Yard, have profited by the popular misconception to the extent of adopting the figure of a female partly clad in skins as their trade-mark. Then, again, who has not heard of “The Tabard”? and whence did that derive its sign? Among other celebrated inns still preserved to us, we have “Jack Straw’s Castle” on Hampstead Heath. But who was Jack Straw? and had he ever a castle thereabouts? As will be shown in these pages, the answer to these questions is associated with a very stirring moment in English History.
A great deal of the early history of England can be gleaned from the names of the counties into which this country is divided. The terms Shire and County are so far synonymous in that they indicate a portion of land distinguished by a particular name; yet, etymologically considered, they are widely different. Although every shire is a county, it is not every county to whose individual name the word “shire” may be added. The latter is essentially Anglo-Saxon, denoting a division of land possessed by an earl, and wherever it occurs it points conclusively to the Saxon occupation of England. Certainly, we do not speak of Essex-shire, Middle-sex-shire, or Sussex-shire, because the Saxon territories referred to, as well as their relative positions, are fully indicated in the names themselves. Neither are we accustomed to allude to Surrey-shire, for the reason that the word Surrey expressed the Anglo-Saxon for the land south of the rey, or river, comprising, as it did, that large tract of land described as Wessex, or the land of the West Saxons, now divided into six southern shires. The fact is, Wessex was the great kingdom of the Saxons in this country, whereas Essex, Middlesex, and Sussex were but petty kingdoms. Consequently, in the kingdom of Wessex it was that earldoms were first created, and lands appertaining thereto were literally scired, or sheared off. On the other hand, it would be ridiculous in the extreme, quite apart from the unfamiliarity of such an expression, to speak of Kent-shire, because there is nothing in the name that invests it with a Saxon interest. The same remark is applicable to Cornwall. It is only from habit, too, or because the name lends itself to the euphony, that Devon is denominated a shire; for not only is this a Celtic name, but the Saxons scarcely penetrated into, and certainly never occupied any considerable portion of, the county. The England of the Saxons, therefore, is to be distinguished wherever the word “shire” appears as part of the name of a county.
If the foregoing paragraph be deemed interesting to the general inquirer, a careful digest of the chapter on “The Countries of the World” should prove most instructive. With a few exceptions only, the names of the different countries of the Old World afford us an indication of their original inhabitants, or the rude tribes that overran them. In regard to the New World, such names of countries as are not of native origin invariably point to the nationality of the navigators who discovered them or of the adventurers who explored and colonized them. The maritime enterprise of the Spanish and Portuguese is in nothing so evident as in the territories named in accordance with their respective languages in South and Central America, to say nothing of the islands discovered by them in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. And, as a set-off against the shameful treatment by the Spaniards of Christopher Columbus, it must not be forgotten that the whole of the North American territory now embraced in the United States was originally designated Columbia in his honour, which name has been preserved in the Western portion of the continent known as British Columbia. A few Spanish names still linger in North America, notably California, Labrador, Florida, Nevada, Oregon, and Colorado. But the Spaniards were rovers rather than settlers; wherefore they contented themselves with maintaining their national reputation as successful navigators by giving names to the countries they discovered, and establishing a lucrative trading monopoly in that portion of the Caribbean Sea which formerly bore the name of the Spanish Main.
On the contrary, the English and French have distinguished themselves always, and all the world over, as colonists; so that, saving those States of North America which have received the native names of the great lakes and rivers, we can discover exactly which were colonized by the one nation and which by the other. Moreover, the English and French have generally exercised the common trait of honouring the mother country by naming a new colony or a newly-discovered island after the reigning monarch or a distinguished countryman. A similar trait in the Dutch character presents itself in the repetition of the names of the native places of their navigators and colonists; while the Spaniards and Portuguese have displayed a tendency for naming an island discovered or a river explored by them in a manner commemorative of the day that witnessed the event. At the same time, it would not be wise to conjecture, merely from the name, that Columbus discovered the island of Trinidad on the Feast of the Holy Trinity, because he did nothing of the