187 



(from Grimm,) all have a little history included in their very names.* 

 The habit of looking into the meaning and origin of the names of 

 places, is one which affords amusement, and gathers knowledge for us 

 wherever we carry it. Take for instance such a town as Ripon ; — the 

 names of many of the villages and hamlets in the neighbourhood, such 

 as Bishop-Monkton^ Bishop-thorpe, Bishop-aide^ Biahop-ton, Nun-ton, 

 iVw/i-thorpe, i^w.'i-wick, Kirk-hy, and others, at once lead us to infer the 

 antiquity of the ecclesiastical establishment there, and direct us to 

 determine its position and boundaries; while the names Stainlej, 

 Stanvnck, Stainforthj and 5<amdrop, instruct us as to the stony nature 

 of the district. 



An essay was read some time ago, by a talented member of this 

 Society, showing the amount of knowledge which may be collected 

 round and associated to a single geographical name ; nor is this the 

 case with geographical names only. Every Christian name, and 

 every surname has also a meaning, and to many of these too a most 

 interesting history may be attached. The word surname itself, and 

 the distinction between the sirename and the surname; — the origin 

 of the surnames of our royal families — the Plantagenets, from whom the 

 Broomes of the present day claim to be lineally descended ; — the Tudors ; 

 the Stuarts, the founder of whose family was actually Steward of Scot- 

 land ; and the Guelphs ; — the names of many of our noble families, the 

 Spensers, the first of whom was the Dispenser or Steward of William 

 the Conqueror ; — the Grosvenors, whose founder was Le Gros Veneur, 

 the great huntsman of the Dukes of Normandy ; — the Napier, who had 

 *' no peer ;" — and the Lockhart who carried home the Bruces' heart 

 locked up in its casket; — all these names have a history enfolded, 

 as it were, within them : so too have party names 6ind nicknames, and 

 even the names of articles of common use among us, the origin and 

 derivation of many of the most obvious and well-known of which are 

 treated of in Sullivan's " Dictionary of Derivations," and in Mr. 

 Trench's eloquent Uttle book, •* The Study of Words." 



I might also instance the names of animals, birds, and fishes, most of 

 which take their names from some obvious quality eminently descriptive 

 of them. A few examples of these have been given by Mr. Donaldson, 

 in his •' New Cratylus," and " Varronianus," as /3oui, the bellower; f x»?v 



* See Worsae's " Northmen in England." 



+ We may compare the connection of "nag" and "neigh," and that of "horse," with 

 "hinnire," and the Anglo-Saxon hnegan. The German Ross is but an inverskion of our 

 word " horse" (h ros) ; the Latin soni-pes, (sounding-foot,) also is very expressive. These 

 names of animals might be classed as those deriving their names either (I) from the sound* 

 tliey utter, or (2) from their peculiar motion, or (3) from soiae other characteristic. 



