USE AND ORIGIN OF SURNAMES. 39 
to their general conventional use, we know that 
through the potent influence of custom, they are 
daily pronounced by the most pure lips without 
any sense of indelicacy. 
This mode of designating men by nicknames, 
in the place of surnames, is still pretty exten- 
sively used among the lower ranks in this country, 
and especially in the county of Lancaster ; and 
they supersede temporarily the authentic surnames 
without however acquiring the same permanence, 
as in days of yore. In some parts of this county, 
and perhaps indeed in most parts of England, 
among the common people, persons are scarcely 
ever distinguished by their right name, and it is 
often unknown to their nearest neighbours. I 
believe that the most common analogy which 
guides them is, uniting the name of the father to 
that of the son, with the particle of, or rather o” 
between them. Thus if the son’s name be Thomas 
and the father’s John, the son’s name, according 
to this rustic fashion, will be Tum o’ Jack’s. I 
have heard it mentioned, that in some village 
there was a person whose colloquial name was 
Dick o’ Dick’s, that is Richard the son of Richard, 
and his son, whose christian name was John, ob- 
tained the name of Jack o’ double Dicks. The 
