COKNISn NAMES. 



51 



it has been thought that the names of families most common in 

 Cornwall are those beginning with these Celtic prefixes. It is not 

 so, however; they are far outnumbered by other names equally 

 Celtic with them, common English names, such as I have given 

 above, and patronymics. These last are very common. ITor is 

 this surprising, when Tonkin tells us that he had heard of cases 

 last century where the sons bore their father's Christian name as 

 their surname, and gave their own Christian names as surnames to 

 their children ; while others were distinguished by the name of 

 their estate or residence. remember," he says, ''one of the 



Tregeas of St. Agnes having three sons ; himself was called 

 Leonard Rawe ; his eldest son was William Leonard ; the second, 

 John a'n Bans, from the place he lived in ; and the third, Leonard 

 Tregea." 



The meaning of the couplets given by Carew and Camden is, 

 that a great number of Cornish names are of local origin derived 

 from names of places, and a great proportion of these begin with 

 these common prefixes. According to Carew, Tre^ Pol, and Pen, 

 mean respectively "a towne, a top, and a head;" while Camden 

 more correctly says of Tre, Ros, Pol, Lan, Caer, and Pen, — they 

 "signifie a towne, a heath, a poole, a church, a castle or citie, and 

 a foreland or promontory." Some of these, hoAvever, admit of 

 other meanings. Tre = tref, a dwelling, or a collection of dwellings, 

 and so comes to mean a town, as town formerly was tun, an inclo- 

 sure, and so might be a farm ; and in Cornwall now a farm - yard 

 with its buildings is called '*a town place;" and a very small 

 village, a few houses near the parish church, is Church-town;** 

 thus we have Gwennap Church-town, Redruth Church-town — this 

 last a mile from the town of Redi^uth. Again, Zctn is not always 

 a church ; it is found prefixed to names of places where there is no 

 reason to suppose there ever was a church ; it originally meant an 

 enclosure; and in Wales to this day, its Welsh equivalent Plan, 

 w^iile it is commonly prefixed to the name of a saint, and so forms 

 the name of the church or parish, is also used in its original signi- 

 fication ; thus they have perlan, a pear enclosure, i.e., orchard; 

 idlan, a corn enclosure, or stack-yard. 



Most names of places in Cornwall are compounds, those of 

 Teutonic origin having the generic or common term last; thus 



* Ciric tioi = church town, was used by the Anglo-saxons for the church- 

 yard, or, as it is called in Cornwall, church-hay, formerly cglos hay. 



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