NOMENCLATURE, 111 



letters — confounding, for instance, c and /, e and o, h and v, u and 

 n ; and from the different modes of expressing the guttural, with 

 a c or cli, a ^ or a gh, or leaving it out altogether ; and also from 

 confusion with regard to the literal mutations. 



Few surnames are found in Domesday; none in connexion 

 with Cornwall ; but we find they came into common use shortly 

 after the date of that book. Some of these were mere personal 

 sobriquets taken from some peculiarity of the individual, or from 

 his country or ofl&ce, and were not originally intended to be here- 

 ditary, but became so by accident ; among these may be reckoned 

 the old name U. Erchdelme, which,, as being a clerical office, one 

 would not have expected to become an hereditary name. Other 

 surnames were patronymics. The father's name was put after the 

 son's, at first preceded by Filius, which was corrupted into Fitz, 

 This corresponds Avith the Welsh Ap, of which we have some 

 remnant in the Cornish names, Price, Prish, Bevan, &c., the first 

 letter being a corruption of Ap. Afterwards the connection be- 

 tween father and. son was expressed by the father's name being- 

 put in the possessive case ; thus we have : Williams, Willimn's 

 son ; Johns (Jones is more common in Wales) Johris son ; and so 

 Richards, Eickards, Rogers ; though some of these may have arisen 

 directly from- the Latin forms, Eogerus,, Eicardus, &c^ 



But the great source of surnames, especially here in Cornwall,. 

 are localities.^ Some names are at once seen to be from this source ; 

 and many more than are generally supposed have been thus derived,, 

 both here and in other parts of England. A lady, the other day, 

 could not understand lioV Chynoweth could be Newhouse, seeing it 



* In Carew's time, he tells us, it was " customary to surname a person by 

 his father's Christian name, and to conclude with his residence; thus John 

 the son of Thomas dwelling at Pendarves is called John Thomas Pendarves " ; 

 and he says that a family changing, its abode would change its name ; thus, 

 Trengove was changed to Nance, Bonithon to Garclew. Tonkin says, in his 

 time " the meaner sort, especially in the west, continue to call the son by the 

 father's Christian name ; " and though he says it was beginning to fall off, 

 I have been told of some recent instances in S. Agnes, from which parish 

 Tonkin takes his illustration. " I remember," says he, " one of the Tregeas 

 of S. Agnes having three sons ; himself was called Leonard Eawe " (the vulgar 

 pronunciation of Ealph, his father's name), " his eldest son was William 

 Leonard, the second John a'n Bans, from the name oi the place he lived in, 

 and the third Leonard Tregea." 



f So much so, that Borlase, in his Vocabulary, giving " Leeshann, a sur- 

 name," adds " i.e., a name from a place." 



