2 
Tolman—English Surnames. 
meaning, their phonetic development has been very largely free 
from those disturbing influences of analogy which have often 
affected the ordinary words of the language. I hope to give a 
few illustrations of this point. 
The first characters in Bible history —■ to begin at the be¬ 
ginning— have each a single name, Adam, Seth, Enoch. As 
the earth became more fully populated, individuals of the same 
name came to be distinguished from one another by additional 
names. These second names were personal and descriptive; they 
were not proper surnames. Joshua the son of Nun, Simon Bar- 
jonas, afterward called Simon Peter, Simon of Gyrene, and 
“ Simon called Zelotes, ” are instances of these additional, per¬ 
sonal names. 
The well-known Roman system of naming was very elaborate. 
Let us put down a dot upon our sheet, and number it 1; around 
this dot as a centre let us draw first a smaller circle, numbered 
3; and then a larger circle, numbered 2. 
The resulting figure will be a good symbol 
of the Roman system of personal nomen¬ 
clature. The person whom we call Cicero 
was of the family of Cicero; this family 
was a division of the Tullian stock , or 
clan; the personal name of the great orator 
was Marcus. We must call him, for short, 
either Tully or Cicero; since there were many famous men 
named Marcus. 
No surnames existed in G-reat Britain previous to the Norman 
Conquest. The second -names that are found before the Conquest 
are purely personal nicknames . No better examples of these 
can be found than those given in the table of the English kings: 
Harold Barefoot, Alfred the Great, Ethelred the Unready 
— lacking in good counsel), Edward the Confessor, Edmund 
Ironside. 
The Normans brought the use of surnames into England. The 
fashion was a new one in Normandy itself; and no surnames in 
the Teutonic nations were in use much before 1066. The Nor¬ 
mans were proud of owning much land, and took their surnames 
from their large estates in Normandy or their new possessions in 
