ANGLO-SAXON PATRONYMICS. 45} 
may be families of the same name from the Low 
Countries, which either settled among us at the 
time already mentioned, or which fied over for 
refuge during the time their fatherland was op- 
pressed by the Spanish yoke, as well as families 
of German extraction bearing the same name. 
But besides such names as cannot be referred 
to such circumstances are others, which, though 
in the patronymic form, are still not of patrony- 
mic origin; such as Pilling, Melling, Walling. 
These names have arisen from residence at such 
places like those already alluded to. It would 
be carrying us beyond our present subject to en- 
quire into the probable origin of such Jocal names ; 
as also into the introduction of other names of 
similar terminations : such as Billing, from the old 
Norse Billingr, Irving, from the Danish, Arving, 
&c., where, it must be remembered, the termina- 
tion merely expresses something relative to the 
person, as in the latter “ Arving,” meaning an 
heir. Nor must we confound, in such enquiries, 
terminations in ing, when a part only of the suffix, 
as the names Carling, from Car, Harling, from 
Har—ling in such names being a diminutive. 
To these we can only just allude to prevent us 
from confounding one class of proper names with 
