Morphonological Changes in the Middle English Personal Names (original) (raw)
Related papers
England offers one of the richest sources of information for study of trends in names and naming. First, and most relevant to the themes of this book, it was the subject of three waves of migration in the medieval period which affected both language and naming. Secondly, an unusually rich survival of documentation from the late eleventh-century onward allows us to trace this process in some detail. The Anglo-Saxon immigrants of the fifth and sixth century so well established themselves that their language completely replaced the British language previously spoken, confining it to the western extremities of Wales, Cornwall in southwest England and Galloway in southwest Scotland. English place-names preserve the evidence of this language change: very few British elements survive (exceptions include the names of the River Thames and the port of Dover). Detailed studies of place-names, still in progress, have yielded some insights into the process of the early Germanic invasions, for example, indicating some of the preoccupations of the settlers with topographical features such as water, and even preserve some of their personal names; for example, Brightwell «bright spring», and Mackney, «Macca's island» in Berkshire 1. The invasion of Danish Vikings in the eighth century affected place-names in the Midlands and the east in the area known as the Danelaw, and introduced Scan-dinavian names into the English personal name pool (reinforced by the Danish conquest of 1016). The Norman Conquest of 1066, by an army predominantly of Normans, but also including Bretons and Picards, introduced a completely new set of personal names which eventually almost completely replaced native English names. It did so at a time when naming systems elsewhere in Europe were moving towards a two-name system. What this essay primarily aims to do is to document the changes after 1066 by means of a corpus of name records collected in my Continental Origins of English Landholders (1066-1166) [COEL] Database, supplemented by analysis of some contrasting texts, both contemporary and later.
Anglia, 2017
Starting in the mid nineteen-seventies, Fran Colman has produced a considerable body of research, chiefly, but not entirely, on the linguistic features of the moneyers' names of the Anglo-Saxon period. The work reviewed here can be regarded as an attempt to fit the results of these anthroponymic studies into some sort of theoretical context. It has received important impulses from the work of John Anderson, which the author freely acknowledges. The book is opened by a fairly lengthy introduction (1-18). Dr Colman defines the (mental) onomasticon as "the repository for lexical information about names" (1). At the same time, she takes the view that there is "no such thing as The Old English Onomasticon" (ibid), since the onomasticon will vary from speaker to speaker and be subject to diachronic variation. On the other hand, the individual variation from speaker to speaker is subject to the constraints of a collective onomastic consensus among the body of the speakers. Her survey is based on the personal nomenclature of the period between the eighth and the eleventh century and her material is taken from the corpus of Anglo-Saxon moneyers' names supplemented by written records (see 9-10). The moneyers' names are unequivocally contemporary sources and form a primary record for the study of historical phonology and anthroponymic lexis. The introduction includes full discussion of gender and the name data (10-18), and she is rightly sceptical, despite the existence of moneyers named G GIFU IFU and H HILD ILD, about the possibility of female membership of the corps of Anglo-Saxon moneyers. As Colman suggests (13), Gifu may be a nickname derived from the substantive OE ġi(e)fu f. 'gift' which had replaced the original baptismal name. Hild is more straightforward. Despite it being known as the name of the famous Abbess Hild of Whitby (ob. 680), it may also be interpreted as a short form of such masculine names as OE Hildefrið, ON Hildólfr, ContGerm Hildebert. Colman follows conventional notions on the structure of Germanic personal nomenclature in that she uses the categories of dithematic, monothematic and extended monothematic names. This is an acceptable morphological taxonymy, but, in the case of monothematic and extended monothematic names, it fails to deal with semantic ambiguities. For example, she links the monothematic names Lēofa, Swēta, Brorda and Wulf to OE lēof 'beloved', OE swēte 'sweet', OE brord m.
Old English ead in Anglo-Saxon given names: A comparative approach to Anglo-Saxon anthroponomy
Sociocultural Dimensions of Lexis and Text in the History of English, 2018
The Anglo-Saxon name-element ead- was the one of the most common themes used to form dithematic personal names. The overall goal of this paper is to examine the reason for this abundance in anthroponyms such as Eadbald, Eadberht, Eadred. First, the paper addresses the questions of which meaning of Old English ead (wealth, prosperity, happiness, bliss) is present in personal names, and whether there is a hidden message in these names. I look for the ancestral meaning of ead by examining the Old English poetic corpus and then establish lexical and anthroponomical parallels within continental Germanic and other Indo-European traditions: namely Old Greek and Old Slavic. The paper suggests that names formed with Germanic *aud- (etymon of OE ead-), Greek plouto-, and Slavic žir- referred to riches and abundance and were originally used within the inferior stratum of society. Originally, they would have been monothematic and reflected the parents’ desire that their progeny would have a prosperous life. Dithematic anthroponyms, then, containing the ead- element (Eadric, Eadwald, Edmund) emerged during the Heroic Age; they were a later interpretation of ancient poetic epithets describing the lord as a guardian of his people and his land.
Variations in Middle English local surnames
Although there are many local surnames in Middle English that originate from places still on map and can easily be identified, many of the surnames indicate nothing more than the place of origin. The article will focus on the factors behind the distortion and variation of Middle English 1 local surnames, and surmises that they vary from place to place because of the way they are spelt, because of the phonetic change and, most importantly, because of the dialectal variation. Variations in local surnames also take place because of the distance a name travels from its origin, of addition of different suffixes, and of different peculiarities. Focusing on four Middle English local surnames with their variants, the article will talk about the etymology of the names, their variations, and the reasons behind their variations. In the case of Oakes, Noakes, and Roake, variations arise from grammatical misinterpretations or the knowledge of the function of prepositional elements. Initial Fin the South was pronounced V which we find in Venn and Fenn. Aston and Easton have the same etymology but they differ from each other on regional and phonological perspectives. Last but not least, Staniforth is a variant of Stanford where the variation arises because of the dialectal variations of suffix –ford and –forth. Introduction A local surname is a convenient term for all surnames derived from a particular locality or place, but these are of more than one type. There are many local surnames which derive from places still on the map and are easily recognisable but many of the surnames show or indicate nothing more than the place of origin. Besides the huge number of names derived from estates, towns and villages, there are many names from landscape features, such as Hill, Wood, and Field or from specific buildings or parts of buildings. The original words of many of the surnames are quite obsolete or they survive only in local dialect. Local surnames are one of the four types of surnames. They refer to place of origin and ownerships of lands. There are lots of variations in surnames and these variations take place because of different factors. In my paper, I will talk about the distortion and variation of ME local surnames due to different reasons — the distance they travel from their birthplace , imitative tendency, and interesting and confusing endings — and shed light on different cases of suffix change. I will focus on four ME local surnames with their variants such as Aston and Easton; Oakes, Noakes, and Roake; Stanford and Staniforth; and Venn and Fenn. I will talk about the etymology of these names, their variations, and reasons behind their variations. Last but not least, I will show the distribution of the names in different counties in the UK based on the data from 1881, 1911, and 2004 2 .
Anglia, 2019
This handbook, consisting of 47 chapters organized in seven parts, which are preceded by a list of contributors (xvii-xxiii) and a useful introduction by the editor (1-13), is a collective work with contributions by some 43 authors. It is opened by a theoretical section, "Onomastic Theory", consisting of three papers, namely, those of Willy Van Langendonck and Mark Van De Velde on names and grammar (17-38), Staffan Nyström on names and meaning (39-51), and Elwys De Stefani on names and discourse (52-66). Nyström is rightly critical of the thesis that names are 'meaninglessʼ. According to this view, when lexical items become names, their semantic content, even if it is readily transparent, is lost and the resulting name is merely referential. For Nyström, meaning cannot be ignored in name formation, though there are degrees of meaningfulness. He examines the concepts of denotation and connotation. The latter is especially important. For example, V VERDUN ERDUN has not only the referential function of denoting the place in eastern France, but also has the connotation of the battle which took place there in 1916. Nyström distinguishes the proprial meaning (i. e. the mental onomasticon) from the lexical meaning, but shows that the two interact. As he indicates, however, there is a difference between names like B BLACKBURN LACKBURN (Lancashire) 'dark bourne, stream' < OE blaec + OE burna, which are formally and semantically transparent, and those like C CHOLMONDELEY HOLMONDELEY /tʃʌmlɪ/ in Cheshire, 'Ceolmund's forest clearing', which are not, though in the former case we should not ignore the effects of dissociation. The second part, on "Toponomastics", consists of eight articles and is opened by Simon Taylor on the methodologies of place-name research (69-86). Taylor's observations reflect his experience in the recently established Survey of Scottish Place-Names and are based on material from the Scottish counties of Fife, Kinross-shire and Clackmannanshire. Most appositely, Taylor illustrates his discussion with sample names. Particularly important is his account of the complex nature of written and oral sources which has a general methodological relevance extending far beyond the immediate Scottish context.
2008
This book is not just a synthesis of previous work but provides a number of insights and claims that are either entirely new or result from substantially reworked and extended existing papers of mine in such a way that the content of this publication hopefully constitutes a consistent and coherent piece of work. I would also like to mention that this work has interdisciplinary traits in that not only language philosophical but also psychoand neurolinguistic studies have been made use of. In addition, dialinguistic, i.e. diatopic, diachronic and sociolinguistic (socio-onomastic) insights have been provided. (p. vii) This volume, in fact, represents the first comprehensive analysis in English of the proper name since the publication of Algeo's (1973) On Defining the Proper Name. The data in the present volume, however, derive from both Dutch and English (p. 119). In his brief general introduction (pp. 1-5), VL reinforces the commitment noted in his foreword that this research project is an interdisciplinary analysis of names that starts from the point of view of linguistics, but which also includes philosophical, neurolinguistic, psycholinguistic, and dialinguistic perspectives (p. 1). Furthermore, this volume considers an amplified domain of proper names that goes beyond the more traditional prototypical names such as first names, surnames, and place names. Rather, it includes a discussion of building names, trade names, and brand names (Carroll, 1985; Stewart, 1953; Eichler et al., 1995, 1996) to name but a few. The ambitious agenda of this comprehensive descriptive, theoretical, and primarily synchronic study of names includes the following significant points: (1) the semantic and syntactic status of proper names; (2) an attempt to establish a boundary between proper names and personal pronouns, and appellatives (common nouns); (3) a typology of proper names on the basis of semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic considerations; and (4) a presentation of socioonomastic theories and descriptions (p. 1). In the first chapter ('Nominal and referential semantic status of proper names', pp. 6-118), the longest of the entire book, VL seeks to provide a unified theory of proper names through an integrated semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic account, which is not an easy task, as evidenced by www.elsevier.com/locate/lingua
Devon & Cornwall Notes & Queries XXXII pt IV, 1972
An examination of the fluidity of surnames in Cornwall in the 16th century, with especial reference to examples in the adjacent parishes of Gwennap and Stithians in west Cornwall.
Personal names in medieval libri vitæ as a sociolinguistic resource
Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics
This paper explores the potential of using a historical sociolinguistic approach to interrogate the extensive lists of personal names found in medieval libri vitæ. So far, these lists have mainly been exploited in historical and a few onomastic studies, with a focus on name etymology and personal naming practices. Both the linguistics of the names and sociolinguistic perspectives remain to date underexamined. In this contribution, we explore possible sociolinguistic research questions, and present methodological challenges and preliminary results on the basis of four case studies from two examples, the libri vitæ of Thorney Abbey and Reichenau. The case studies examine autographs, choice of script and language, and dialect adaptation. Our main interest lies in the modelling and explanation of graphic and linguistic variation in the names. Our particular focus is on the status of the respective vernacular languages involved (Old English and Old High German) and in the conclusions we ...