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CHAPTER IX.
NICKNAMES

We have now reached the last class of surnames – that which we have called Nicknames. We have dealt with local names, baptismal names, official names, and occupative names. With Nicknames we conclude our list. John At-wood, John Thomson, John Chamberlain, and John Baker, would respectively represent the classes already discussed. John Fox might as fitly act as the representative of our nicknames.

If Nickname be but prosthetically put for an ekename– that is, an added name, a, name appended to the Christian name to eke out or complete a man’s identity – then all surnames are nicknames and all nicknames are surnames. It is better, therefore, that I should state at the outset what I mean by a chapter on Nicknames.

I intend to take in only such sobriquets as were affixed upon individuals by their neighbours to express some physical or mental peculiarity, complimentary or the reverse, whether given in jest or earnest.

This is a very nondescript class, and is therefore much better illustrated than explained. If a man developed some grotesque or pitiful characteristic, either in his bodily shape or his mental attributes, it was just as easy to nickname him by the English term that most plainly described it, or to style him by some name of the lower creation that was supposed to represent that particular characteristic. Thus if Thomas were of crafty disposition, it would be as easy to nickname him Thomas Sly as Thomas Fox. Thus both Sly and Fox are nicknames. There is scarcely a moral attribute that is not found in our directories. In the same receptacle almost every name of every living creature in earth, sea, and air, is to be seen. Indeed, with respect to this latter class, we find in later days a reversal of the statement met with in Genesis ii. 19. There it is said, “And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field.” I say this statement was reversed four or five hundred years ago by our English forefathers. They gave the cattle, the fish, and the birds, men’s names, and gave to men the names of the cattle, the fish, and the birds. There is not a single domestic animal which was not familiarly known to our ancestors by a nickname taken from our baptismal nomenclature, while, on the other hand, there is not a single domestic animal whose proper name was not affixed as a nickname upon some member of the rational community.

I will give an illustration or two of what I mean. They shall be taken from the London Directory. Spenser says, —

“The ruddock warbles soft.”

Many of my readers will not know what a ruddock is. It was the old proper name for the robin-redbreast. Chaucer has the name in “The Assembly of Fowls.” But our forefathers nicknamed this homely bird robin. Every family then had a “Robin” in the household. Out of fondness for the bird that did not desert them when the winter snow enveloped the trees with a white mantle, but came hopping to the doorstep for a crumb, they styled it by the familiar term of robin. This nickname became so popular that it all but pushed out the more orthodox term of ruddock. But there are three Ruddicks and five Ruddocks in the London Directory! What does this show? Why, that as the man’s name of Robin was given to the bird, so the bird’s name of ruddock was given to the man. We find a Ralph Ruddoc registered so early as the Hundred Rolls. No doubt he got the nickname from some peculiar redness of the chin or throat, or because of some peculiarity in his habits or demeanour, which struck his neighbours with a fancied similarity to the bird. A sparrow was always called “Phip,” from Philip. On the other hand, I find no less than twenty Sparrows in the London Directory. Thus a pye became a Mag-pie, from Margaret, and we still chant in nursery song, —

 
“See-saw,
Margery Daw.”
 

Having given them Margaret, they have presented us with many of our Daws, all our Pyes, and the one Pie of the London Directory. How odd that while, as I have shown, there are so many hundred Cooks in the metropolis, they can only turn out one Pie! There is a large assortment of Cockerells, Cockrells, and Cockrills in the Directory. Young cocks still go by this name in Cumberland. Driving in my dogcart to visit a sick woman on the hill-side the other day, I went by a barn-door on which I saw a placard advertising the sale of fine healthy “cockerels.” But I may not linger. We may see in this same metropolitan record Swans, Finches, Herons, Cootes, Ducks, Drakes, Woodcocks, Partridges, Goslings, and Gosses, by the dozen. Gosling is often but a corruption of Joscelyn, and so is not of the nickname class. Goss is but the old spelling of “goose.” In our older records we find it registered as Peter le Goos, Amicia le Gos, or John le Gos. All our Pinnicks and Pinnocks are from the old pinnock or pinnick, the hedge-sparrow: —

 
“Thus in the pinnick’s nest the cuckoo lays,
Then, easy as a Frenchman, takes her flight.”
 

There are eleven Wrens hopping about our London streets, and I daresay they often stand – not on one leg, of course – to stare at St. Paul’s Cathedral, and to think with pride on Christopher Wren, and his epitaph, “Si monumentum quæris, circumspice.” There are fifteen Nightingales, too, but whether or no they can all sing sweetly I cannot say. One of the happiest anagrams ever written was that upon “Florence Nightingale,” which by a transposition of letters makes, “Flit on, cheering angel.” It is as good as “Horatio Nelson,” which can be turned into “Honor est a Nilo.”

Many of these nicknames we see for ourselves could not have been intended to be very complimentary. A single quotation will prove this. We know that every great personage up to the middle of the sixteenth century had his or her professional fool, or joker. The “privy expenses” of Elizabeth of Yorke for March, 1502, have this entry: – “Item: delivered to John Goose, my Lord of Yorke’s fole (fool), in rewarde for bringing a carppe (carp) to the Quene, 12d.” Here is a palpable nickname for the office, the term itself being taken from that bird which was popularly supposed to reign supreme over simpletondom. “You goose” is still commonly applied to a child that has done something silly. That our “Gosses” should retain a forgotten and obsolete spelling is very natural. There are three Patches in the Directory. I crave their pardon for reminding them that their progenitor held the honourable office of “fool” to some English king or baron. We are all familiar with

“The king of shreds and patches.”

It was through this peculiarity in his dress the official fool got the sobriquet of “Patch.” Henry the Eighth’s fool bore this name: “Item: paied to the same Pyne for 2 payr of hosen for Patche – xs.,” says an old book of “Privy Purse Expenses” belonging to that king.

Speaking of birds, we may mention the name of Spark, or Sparke. Few of my readers probably are aware that this is but a corruption of Sparrowhawk. Sparhawk was the intermediate form, and was once very common. It was a Mr. Sparrowhawk to whom the great Thomas Fuller jocularly put the question, “What is the difference between an owl and a sparrowhawk?” His companion at once retorted with the reply, “An owl is fuller in the head, fuller in the face, and Fuller all over!” This was but repaying the historian in his own coin, for no one has made so many puns and plays on names and words as Fuller. He carried it to an extent which in our day would be considered profane. Many will recall his prayer in rhyme —

 
“My soul is stainèd with a dusty colour, —
Let Thy Son be the sope, I’ll be the Fuller.”
 

Again, in a spirit of devout meekness, he writes, “As for other stains and spots upon my soul, I hope that He (be it spoken without the least verbal reflection) who is the Fuller’s sope, will scour them forth with His merit, that I may appear clean by God’s mercy.” It was but natural, that when this great religious punster died, a suggestion should have been made that his epitaph should run thus: “Here lies Fuller’s earth.” ¹³ This was not done, and just as well it was not; for if puns are ever objectionable, it is when they appear in epitaphs. Nevertheless, one of the finest instances of paranomasia on record is to be found on the tablet to Foote’s memory in Westminster Abbey: —

 
“Here lies one Foote, whose death may thousands save;
For now Death hath one Foote within the grave.”
 

A similar interchange of nominal courtesies is observable in the names of cattle and wild beasts. Pigg, Hogg, Stott, Colt, Bullock, Duncalf, Wolf, Lamb, Kidd, Bacon, Grice, and Wildbore all speak for themselves; while in our North English Oliphants and Olivants we recognize the old spelling of “elephant.” No doubt the original bearer of the nickname was of unusually large proportions even for the border country of England and Scotland. Speaking of Lamb, we are reminded that a brother-in-law of John Wesley bore the name of Whitelamb, and therefore could scarcely be called, under any circumstances, a black sheep! There are six Bears and eighty Bulls in the Directory. The Gentleman’s Magazine for 1807 records the death of “Savage Bear, Esquire,” who was a resident in Kent. In the same article mention is made of a Mr. Mould, cheesemonger, in Newgate Street. But we have Bearmans, Bullards (that is, Bullwards), Bulmans, and Bullpitts in our Directory, too. It was not till 1835 bear-baiting and bull-baiting were forbidden by Act of Parliament. It had reigned at the head of English pastimes for six centuries. Hence it was a common inn-sign. The oldest hostel in London was supposed to be the “Bear,” on the Southwark side of old London Bridge. Hence an old poem says, —

 
“We came to the Bear, which we soon understood
Was the first house in Southwark built after the flood.”
 

Every rich man had his bearward, and the royal houses had their “master of the king’s bears.” Both Mary and Elizabeth enjoyed a good baiting, whether of bulls or bears. The Puritans of course were against it, and so far were in advance of the times, but it is a peculiar feature of their opposition that they scarcely ever refer to the cruelty of the sport. Orthodox and somewhat dull Pepys describes in 1666 how he saw some good sports of the bulls tossing the dogs – one into the very boxes. A leading Puritan minister not twenty years later is always found, by his own published diary, to have sent his children to the cock-pit on Shrove-Tuesday to witness the “throwing-at-the-cock,” and he piously prays they may be preserved from harm while away (“Newcome’s Diary,” Cheetham Society’s Publications). Thus it is we find so many “Cockers” and “Cockmans” in the Directory. As for our “Cocks” or “Coxes,” every young gallant who showed determined pluck, or strutted in his gait, or gave himself airs, was nicknamed from the cockpit or barn-door dictionary. No wonder our Directory teems with them, for it would be looked upon in bygone days as a pretty compliment. This is the origin of “cock” in such mediæval pet names as Wilcock, Jeffcock, Batcock and Badcock (Bartholomew), Simcock, Hancock and Handcock (Hans, i. e. Johannes), Bawcock (Baldwin), Pidcock and Peacock (Peter), Philcock, now Philcox, and Adcock or Atcock (Adam). To give my readers a list of the views propounded as to the meaning of this desinence would take too much space. Suffice it to say that nothing has seemed too absurd for those who love “guesses at truth,” without ever guessing right, to advance. Every rustic lusty lad was “Cock,” especially if he had a perky cocky way of his own. And in these names of Philcock or Jeffcock, we simply see the old-fashioned way of hailing Philip or Jeffery as, “Well, Jeff-cock, lad, how art thou?” “Pretty well, Phil-cock, thank’ee.” In the old play, Gammer Gurton’s Needle, Gammer’s servant lad is called simply “Cock,” without the baptismal name being appended at all. It is so in the mediæval poem entitled “Cocke Lorell’s Bote.”

But we have got among the birds again. We must hark back to our four-footed friends. There are no “Donkeys” in the London Directory – probably the only place in the world where they are not to be found. But this may be accounted for, perhaps, because there are no Thistles there either. Nevertheless, had there been an English Directory in the year when Domesday Book was compiled, it would have been otherwise; for, thistles or no thistles, “Roger the Ass” is among the list of tenants under the crown. Here we have been liberal: for we have presented our good thistle-loving friend with no less than three of our baptismal names. In the north of England, where Cuthbert was the favourite appellation for three centuries at least, he is called a Cuddy, that being the pet form of the saintly sobriquet. ¹⁴ In more southern regions he is known as Ned or Neddy, from Edward. And north and south alike, Jack-ass is familiar to all. It is curious to notice how a name that has become opprobrious can be dropped. “Rascal” was one of our commonest surnames while the term only meant a lean, ragged deer; but when it was passed on to a herd of worthless folk the surname disappeared. One of the latest was Robert Rascal, who, according to Foxe, was persecuted for his religion in 1517.

I must not omit the mention of one or two of our household favourites. There are five Catts in our London Directory, entered in old days as Adam le Kat, or Milo le Chat. In the reign of Richard the Third, there was a rhyme to this effect: —

 
“The Rat, the Cat, and Lovel the Dog,
Rule all England under the Hog.”
 

The Hog was the king, Rat was Ratcliffe, and Cat, Catesby. It is not often we hear of cat, dog, and rat, uniting together to worry others, and not one another! If I recal my history correctly, however, they did fall out in the end.

There must have been something sleek and smooth, if not stealthy, about the progenitor of our friends the Catts, I fear. But if our mouse-loving friends gave us their appellation, we were bountiful in return. For three hundred years the most familiar term for a cat was “Gib,” from Gilbert. Hamlet says: —

 
“For who that’s but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,
Such dear concernings hide?”
 

And in Peele’s “Edward the First,” the Novice says to the Friar: —

 
“Now, master, as I am true wag,
I will be neither late nor lag,
But go and come with gossip’s cheer
Ere Gib, our cat, can lick her ear.”
 

That Gib was short for Gilbert, our Gibbs, Gibsons, Gibbins, and Gibbons can prove. But “Gib” for a cat is obsolete, I fear; and now we speak of a Tom-cat. A female cat was called a Tib-cat, or Tibert, from Tibb, or Tibot, pet forms of Theobalda, which at one period as Tibota was our commonest girl’s name. In “Gammer Gurton’s Needle,” one of our very earliest dramatic plays, Dicon (Richard) says: —

 
“To brawle with you about her cocke,
For well I heard Tyb say,
The cocke was roasted in your house,
To breakfast yesterday.”
 

Tyb was Gammer Gurton’s “mayde.” In the same play the cat is “Gib.” The maid says of Gammer while stitching with her needle, —

 
“Gyb, our cat, in the milke-pan,
She spied over head and ears.”
 

The Kitcat Club took its name from one Christopher Cat, who kept an eating-house in London, where the club members met. The pet name of Christopher was Kit (whence our Kitts, and Kitsons, and the island of St. Kitts, i. e. St. Christopher): a conjunction of the Christian and surname formed the term. I may here add that Bishop Ken represents the Norman word for the dog, an old form being Eborard le Ken, or Thomas le Chene. We still employ the term Kennel, which is from the same root.

This interchange of civilities has not been so largely cultivated between mankind and the finny tribe – at least, not in England. Boys talk, ’tis true, of a Jack-sharp, and fishermen of a Jack-pike or a John Dory; but there we end our distribution of nominal courtesies. But the denizens of our streams and becks and estuaries, whether in fresh water or salt, have turned the tables on us with a vengeance. No doubt, as the penalty of possessing certain peculiarities in gait, or habit, or complexion, many of our forefathers got nicknamed Grayling, Tench, Pike, Herring, Pilchard, or Sturgeon. Whale would be a nickname for a man of huge bulk. Thomas Spratt was Bishop of Rochester in 1688. We are all familiar with Chubb, on account of his patent locks. A Mr. Codde married a Miss Salt, and their first child bore the name of Salt Codde. ¹⁵ This is not more remarkable than “Preserved Fish,” which figured for some years in the New York Directory, and may be there now for what I know to the contrary. A Mrs. Salmon is said to have presented her husband with three children at one birth, and to commemorate such an auspicious event, he had them christened by the names of Pickled, Potted, and Fresh. I do not vouch for the truth of this story! ¹⁶ I may observe here that it is somewhat remarkable that quaint Isaac Walton, the great master, rather than “disciple of the rod,” wrote the life of the “judicious Hooker.” Most anglers are disposed to think that Walton himself was the most “judicious hook-er” that England has ever seen. At least, his success with the fish-basket was so great, and his meditations while occupied with his favourite pastime were so wise, that cynical Samuel Johnson could not say of his fishing rod, that there was a worm at one end and a fool at the other.

Talking about fish, what an odd thing it seems that there should be 181 Fishers and Fischers in the London Directory, only eight Rivers to fish in, and only sixteen Fish to catch! Nor is this all: they have only three Rodds amongst them, thirty Lines or Lynes, thirty Hooks and Hookes, six Worms, nine Grubbs, and not a single “Fly.” Nor do I see what they can want with three Basketts; surely one would be enough for but sixteen Fish. Speaking, too, of Fish and Worms, we must not forget the old epitaph on Mr. Fish: —

 
“Worm’s bait for fish,
But here’s a sudden change,
Fish’s bait for worms, —
Is not that passing strange?”
 

The reptile and insect world is not without traces of representation in the London Directory. There is no Alligator or Crocodile there, ’tis true; but there might have been, had the following story occurred a few generations earlier than it did. Not very long ago, in a northern town, there was a town councillor who delighted in the use of sesquipedalian English. He would never employ a short word if he could lay hands on a long one. He was rather of a positive turn, too. One day a fellow officer made a certain statement before the Council. Up jumps our friend, and cries out, “That allegation is false, and – and the allegator knows it.” He has been styled “Alligator” ever since. Fly, Wasp, Bee, Gnat, and Bugg once existed, but only Bee and Bugg remain. Black-adder was formerly common, and still lingers in the Metropolitan Directory as Blackadar. Bugg, however, can claim a local origin, for there can be little or no doubt that it is but one of the endless forms of Borough, found as Brough, Bury, Burgh, Burge, and Burke. Nevertheless Thomas Hood did not seem to like it: —

 
“A name – if the party had a voice —
What mortal would be a Bugg by choice,
As a Hogg, a Grubb, or a Chubb rejoice,
Or any such nauseous blazon?
Not to mention many a vulgar name,
That would make a doorplate blush for shame,
If doorplates were not so brazen.”
 

“John Frog” occurs in the Hundred Rolls, but he jumped out of our Directories several centuries ago: and, possibly because his company did not please him, has never jumped in again. Tadpole, ’tis true, exists: but as Tadpoles in our Directories never manifest any further stage of development, the Frogs have never received any increase from them!

But these are not the only names we owe to the animal creation. Our forefathers loved descriptive compounds. After all, there is nothing very terrible in being nicknamed a “wolf,” or a “stott,” or a “peacock,” or a “buzzard,” or a “salmon,” or a “fly.” Our national nickname is “John Bull,” and who ever got into a state of virtuous indignation about that? Yet “bull” is not, taken all round, a very complimentary sobriquet. He’s a stubborn, bellicose, lumbersome kind of creature; and it’s wonderful what a little matter, such as a red rag, will set him into a fury! How frequently we term a man a pig-headed fellow. That was a favourite kind of nickname in old days, and our registers are not without traces of this. We have still Colfox, that is, sly fox. Herring is common; but once we had Freshherring, Goodherring, Badherring, and Rottenherring in our Directories. Pigg, Grice, and Hogg are still to the fore; but Cleanhog, Cleangrice, and Pigsflesh are all gone. Hogsflesh, as stated before, still exists in the South of England; and a rhyme says that —

 
“Worthing is a pretty place,
And if I’m not mistaken,
If you can’t get any butchers’ meat,
There’s Hogsflesh and Bacon.”
 

Other compound nicknames of the same class are Poorfish, Catsnose, Cocksbrain, Buckskin, Goosebeak, Bullhead, and Calvesmaw; but they have all been shuffled out of our Directories, to give place to sobriquets more pleasant of origin, and more euphonious in sound.

In my next chapter I shall proceed with this subject, and, if I can retain my readers’ attention, we shall discuss Nicknames taken from moral and mental and physical characteristics – not affixed through the agency of typical animal names, but by the ordinary and more direct phraseology.