Nicknames Introduction “During the Middle Ages many persons appear with by-names or surnames derived from physical or moral characteristics or from personal habits. Though the number of such names was great, few of them ever became at all common. Many occur as the by-name of a single individual, and seem never to have become hereditary surnames. Most of those that did become hereditary remained rare… even though some ramified and became quite common in some restricted part of the country.” (McKinley, 1977, The Surnames of Oxfordshire p261) “Surnames derived from nicknames are a varied bunch. A few have long been common… but many in the category have always been rare, and many surnames and by-names which existed before 1500 are now extinct. The origin of most nicknames is obscure, but many must have been assigned ironically. As a group, they largely defy classification.” (McKinley, 1977, The History of British Surnames p170) “The great variety of such names or by-names makes it difficult to classify them in any systematic way.” (McKinley, 1977, The Surnames of Oxfordshire p261) Nicknames in medieval documentary sources form the smallest type of surname, 15-20%, but must have been more widely used by the undocumented classes. “Language use in nickname bynames was deployed for a range of purposes: to identify, certainly, but no less to stigmatise, to label, to define, and particularly to marginalize through the regulation of local morality by social groups… it was exclusive, deciding who was in and who was outside the ‘moral community’ in terms of the dominant social group.” (Postles, 2003, Talking Ballocs p 64) “Authentic nicknames constitute virtually our only direct link with colloquial Middle English, offering many antedatings of words and of idioms, slang ones especially. If rightly interpreted, they might also illuminate social attitudes: for instance, the frequent reference to purses – deep, open and locked – suggests censure of stinginess.” (Cecily Clark, 1992, Cambridge History of the English Language Vol 2, p577) “Analysis of nickname bynames thus informs us about language use in speech communities, language codes in contact, the registers of speech, the marking of language, and the lexis of local speech communities. It is one of the points at which some limited familiarity becomes available with common discourse, with the intentionality of language use at lower social levels in the middle ages and with the exchange of words between actors of moderate and low socio-economic status.” (Postles, 2003, Talking Ballocs p 65) “One of the impediments to the formation of hereditary surnames amongst the peasantry and, indeed burgesses might have subsisted in the scatological nature of some nickname bynames.” (Postles, 2006, Naming the People of England p 112) Latinisations Examples of the confusing way in which a single Latin word might hide the actual vernacular name: Albus = White, Blount, Blundell, Fairfax? Carpentarius = Carpenter or Wright? Parvus= Little, Small, Petty or Short? Crassus and Rufus are equally problematic (McKinley, 1991, Nomina 14, p 4)