ENGLISH SURNAMES . 1 
ALBERT H. TGLMAN, PH. D., 
Assistant Professor of English Literature in the University of Chicago. 
What’s in a name? As was remarked by a school-boy who was 
ambitiously attempting to quote Shakespeare, “A nose by any 
other name would smell as much. ” There is a great deal to 
interest one, however, in names, even in those which are appar¬ 
ently the most arbitrary and meaningless of all, surnames. 
Two points in connection with surnames have been of especial 
interest to me: first, the record of former stages of civilization 
that is preserved for us in our surnames taken from occupations; 
and second, the illustrations of the laws of sound-change in the 
English language which are offered us by many surnames whose 
original forms are known. This second point deserves to be 
worked out systematically in the light of our present knowledge 
of the history of English sounds. Perhaps no class of words 
show the phonetic laws of our language more plainly than do 
surnames. These names early and easily became mere names, 
having for their users no inherent meaning. Indeed, surnames 
originate by disregarding the meaning of some personal name. 
When a name given to a father in baptism as his personal name, 
or given to him by common consent as a descriptive designation, 
is applied to his children and his children’s children without 
reference to its original meaning, the name has become a sur¬ 
name. All surnames originate in this way. When a man who 
was originally called Robert’s-son because the personal name of 
his father was Robert, has a child born to him to whom the name 
Robertson is given in disregard of the fact that its father’s per¬ 
sonal name is rot Robert, then the name has become a sur¬ 
name. Because surnames have ceased to have any inherent 
1 This paper was written at the city library, Springfield, Mass. It was 
my intention to revise it at the Boston public library, but I have been 
unable to do so.—A. H. T, 
