Ebook: The Origin of English Surnames

Modern English surnames are a miscellaneous jumble, ultimately from some medieval word, personal-name or placename, all subject to changes of pronunciation and spelling. Words once common have disappeared and names, now meaningless, have been modified by popular etymology and phonetic spelling. Some names, apparently obvious, have the medieval, not the modern meaning. Others point to a dialectal origin or a Scandinavian or French source.
Among the subjects discussed in this book are the classification of surnames; surnames of women, servants and apprentices; patronymics and metronymics; names from occupations, medieval pageants, minstrelsy and drama, Local surnames from English villages, insignificant and lost places are listed, and special attention has been given to the identification of surnames from French places. Chapters are included on the development of hereditary surnames, and on the homes of family names.
The book is an interpretation and extension of the author's A Dictionary of British Surnames, with numerous new examples. It is etymological and explanatory, not genealogical, though this aspect has not been ignored. To the genealogist it will be of great value, and for those interested in names and medieval life there is an abundance of fascinating material.
Eric Partridge, reviewing the book in the Sunday Times, commented: 'Dr Reaney is an academic philologist in the best sense of these two words, whether separately or jointly. He organises the vast mass of material with singular skill and writes in a sober, direct, lucid style admirably suited to matter at once philological and historical. Every surname involves more or less history ; usually more. It is this fact which renders the subject more exciting than most philological matters: and this very learned scholar never fails to be adequately and dependably historical.
The Author
P. H . Reaney, who died in 1967, took his Ph. D. in English at London in 1931, and his Litt. D at Sheffield in 1935. He is well-known as the author of A Dictionary of British Surnames and The Origin of English Place-Names (see reviews on back of this jacket), and has also written works on local history, including four books for the Walthamstow Antiquarian Society, of which he was Chairman for several years. Dr Reaney was a member of the Council of the English Place-Name Society, the Kent Archaeological Society, and was formerly on the Council of the Philological Society and of the Essex Archaeological Society. He was also an F.S.A. and an F.R.Hist.S.