But Came They All To Birmingham
A Brief Discussion on Surnames
Before the Norman Conquest of Britain, people generally did not have surnames, they were known instead by a personal name or nickname. As the population increased it gradually became necessary to identify people further – leading to names such as John the butcher, William the short, Henry from Sutton, Mary of the wood, Roger son of Richard. Following 1066, it was the Norman barons who introduced surnames into England, and the practice gradually spread. Initially, the identifying names were changed or dropped at will, or the spellings changed with pronunciations and styles of writing, but eventually they began to stick and to get passed on. Trades, nicknames, places of origin, and fathers’ names began to become fixed. By 1400 most English families had adopted the use of hereditary surnames – and it became further necessary when tax was levied on the population.
Surnames continued to be formed long after this and some still changed their names or adopted an alias for legal reasons, or sometimes simply on a whim. Surnames deriving from a place are probably the oldest and most common. They can be derived from numerous sources – a country – Scott or Welsh – or town or estate or from features in the landscape – Hill, Heath, Wood, Holt, Wold, Ford, Noll, Down, Gill, Brook, Burn and Bourne, Street or Lane, or directions North, South, West or East or trees such as Root, Ash, Hazel, Birch, Lime and Maple. Many people took their name from the farm or hamlet where they lived. Lincoln, Leicester, Wells etc. Thorpe represented a village, Ham a hamlet.
Other surnames were formed from a person’s look or personality – White, Black, Peace, Wild, Goode, Merry and Gaunt, or their job or trade – Smith, Wright and Taylor and Clark, Cook, Carpenter and Turner, Farmer, Carter, Smith, Nailor, Brewer, Chaloner, Piper and Baker. Occupational names differ in frequency in certain areas for several reasons. The geography of a district may favour one or more specific industries so the occurrence of Mason, Thatcher and Fisher etc may reflect this. The more prolific 12th- to 14th-century building skills are represented by Slater and Tiler, Waller. There are names derived from military occupations include Knight, Squire, Archer, Bowman, Fletcher or Pike, or from social rank – Butler, Maid, Earl, Prince, Duke although those choosing King were presumably a bit rarer.
The Arts gave us Painter, Fiddler, Harper, Piper and Player. From the church we have Church, Cross, Pope, Bishop, Monk, Dean and Abbott and from the legal profession Beadle and Judge. Many baptismal or christian names have become surnames without any change. A son may have acquired his surname by adding -s or -son to his father’s or mother’s name. Use of the father’s name was favoured in the south of England and in the western border counties (where the practice was later copied by the Welsh), while the Mother’s name was preferred in the northern half of England and lowland Scotland.
Although in the slow dawning that presaged the Industrial Revolution many surnames were already in place, the creation of new surnames was slower but new surnames continued to arise based on new practices and occupations – Weaver, Walker, Tucker and Dyer, Miller, Lamplighter and Coleman to name but a few.
But Came They All to Birmingham 