Another superficially puzzling thing is why many people have ecclesiastical
names like Bishop, Monk, Priest, and Prior when such figures were presumably
celibate and unable to pass on their names. The reason here is that part of the
original name has probably been lost. The full name may once have been the
"Bishop's man" if he was a servant or "Priest's Hill" if that was where he lived.
The origins of other names are not immediately apparent because they come
from non-English sources. Russell was from the medieval French roussell, "red-
haired," while Morgan is Welsh for white-haired. Sometimes strange literal meanings are hidden in innocuous-sounding names. Kennedy, means "ugly
head" in Gaelic, Boyd means "yellow-faced or sickly," Campbell means
"crooked mouth." The same is equally true of other languages. As Mario Pei
notes, Gorky means "bitter," Tolstoy means "fat," and Machiavelli means "bad
nails." Cicero is Roman slang for a wart on the nose (it means literally
"chickpea").
In America, the situation with surnames is obviously complicated by the much
greater diversity of backgrounds of the people.
Even so, 183 of the 200 most common last names in America are British.
However, a few names that are common in America are noticeably less common
in Britain. Johnson is the second most common name in the United States (after
Smith), but comes much further down the list in Britain. The reason for this is of
course the great influx of Swedes to America in the nineteenth century—though
in fact Johnson is not a native Swedish name. It is an Americanizing of the
Swedish Jonsson or Johansson. Another name much more often encountered in
America than Britain is Miller. In Britain, millers were unpopular throughout
much of history because of their supposed tendency to cheat the farmers who
brought them grain. So it was not a flattering name. A modern equivalent might
be the name Landlord. Most Millers in America were in fact originally Muellers
or Miillers. The German word had the same meaning but did not carry the same
derisory connotations.
Many, perhaps most, immigrants to America modified their names in some way
to accommodate American spellings and phonics. Often, with difficult Polish or
Russian names, this was involuntary; immigrants simply had new names given
to them at their port of entry. But more often the people willingly made changes to blend into their adopted country more smoothly and to avoid the constant headache of having to spell their name to everyone. Far easier to change Pfoersching to Pershing, Wistinghausen to Westinghouse, Pappadimitracoupolos to Pappas, Niewhuis to New-house, Kuiper to Cooper, Schumacher to Shoemaker, Krankheit to Cronkite, Syigren to Seagren, Lindqvist to Lindquist,and so on. It wasn't just difficult Slavic and Germanic names that this happened with. Scots named McLeod generally changed the spelling of their name to make it conform with its pronunciation, McCloud, and those named McKay usually gave up telling people that it rhymed with sky (as it still does in Britain).Sometimes people took the opportunity to get rid of undesirable surnames which had been imposed on their ancestors during periods of subjugation. Often thesewere offensive—either because the giver had a wayward sense of humor or because he hoped to be bribed into making it something less embarrassing. For instance, the Greek name Kolokotronis translates as "bullet in the ass." But others kept their names—for instance, the Goldwaters, even though that name
was long a synonym for urine.
Another change names sometimes underwent in America was to have the stress
altered. For some reason, in American speech there is a decided preference to
stress the last or next to last syllable in a person's name. Thus Italians coming to
America who called themselves "Es-PO-si-to" had the name changed to "Es-po-
SI-to."
Again, this happened with British names as well. Purcell, Bernard, and Barnett,
which are pronounced in Britain as "persul," "bernurd," and "barnutt," became
in America "pur-SELL," "ber-NARD," and "bar-NETT." But this process wasn't
extended to all names: Mitchell and Barnum, for instance, were left with the
stress on the first syllable.
Over time most names have been variously battered and knocked about. We have already seen how the name Waddington was variously rendered as Wadigton, Wuldingdoune, Windidune, and so on. Shakespeare's grandfather usually called himself Shakestaff.
Snooks might have started life as Sevenoaks, the name of a town in Kent.
Backus might have been Bakehouse. James K. Polk, the eleventh U.S. president,
was descended from people named Pollock. Few names haven't been changed at some time or other in their history. This is often most vividly demonstrated in place-names.
Cambridge, for instance, was called Grantanbrycge in the tenth century. But the
conquering Normans found that a mouthful—they particularly had trouble with
gr combinations—and began to spell it Cantebrigie. Then it became successively Caumbrigge, Cambrugge, and Caunbrige before finally arriving at its modern spelling. Centuries from now it may be something else again. By a similarly convoluted process Eboracum eventually metamorphosed into York.These verbal transformations can be remarkably convoluted. Brightlingsea,
according to P. H. Reaney's The Origin of English Place Names, has been spelled 404 ways since the first interloper began to tinker with the Celtic Brictrich.
Moreover, because of varying influences a single root may have evolved into a
variety of words—Brighton, Brixton, Brislington, and Bricklehampton,
improbable as it seems, all began life with the same name: Beorhthelmes.
The successive waves of invading Celts, Romans, Danes, Vikings, Angles,
Saxons, Jutes, and Normans all endlessly shaped and reshaped British place
names. The result is that England possesses some of the most resplendent place- names in the world—names that roll around on the tongue and fill the mouth like fine claret: Wendens Ambo, Saffron Walden, Gussage All Saints, Stocking Pelham, Farleigh Wallop, Dunton Bassett, Husbands Bosworth. There are 30,000 place-names in Britain and at least half of them are arresting and distinctive—far more than can be accounted for by random activity. They are as integral a part of the glory of the British countryside as thatched cottages, wandering hedgerows, and meadows full of waving buttercups and darting butterflies. As with family names, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the British have such distinctive place-names not because they just accidentally evolved, but rather because the British secretly like living in places with names like Lower Slaughter and Great Snoring.