CONTENTS. (a.) The Destruction of Pet Forms (b.) The Decrease of Nick Forms (c.) The Decay of Saint and Festival Names "One grows too fat, another too lean: modest Matilda, pretty pleasing Peg, sweet-singing Susan, mincing merry Moll, dainty dancing Doll, neat Nancy, jolly Joan, nimble Nell, kissing Kate, bouncing Bess with black eyes, fair Phillis with fine white hands, fiddling Frank, tall Tib, slender Sib, will quickly lose their grace, grow fulsome, stale, sad, heavy, dull, sour, and all at last out of fashion."—Anatomy of Melancholy. "Be the jacks fair within, the jills fair without, the carpets laid, and everything in order?”—The Taming of the Shrew. I. THE PAUCITY OF NAMES AFTER THE CONQUEST. THERE were no Scripture names in England when the Conqueror took possession; even in Normandy they had appeared but a generation or two before William came over. If any are found in the old 가 B English period, we may feel assured they were ecclesiastic titles, adopted at ordination. Greek and Latin saints were equally unnoticed. It is hard to believe the statement I have made. Before many generations had passed, Bartholomew, Simon, Peter, Philip, Thomas, Nicholas, John, and Elias, had engrossed a third of the male population; yet Domesday Book has no Philip, no Thomas, only one Nicholas, and but a sprinkling of Johns. It was not long before Jack and Jill took the place of Godric and Godgivu as representative of the English sexes, yet Jack was from the Bible, and Jill from the saintly Calendar. Without entering into a deep discussion, we may say that the great mass of the old English names had gone down before the year 1200 had been reached. Those that survived only held on for bare existence. From the moment of William's advent, the names of the Norman began to prevail. He brought in Bible names, Saint names, and his own Teutonic names. The old English names bowed to them, and disappeared. A curious result followed. From the year 1150 to 1550, four hundred years in round numbers, there was a very much smaller dictionary of English personal names than there had been for four hundred years before, and than there has been in the four hundred years since. The Norman list was really a small one, and yet it took possession of the whole of England. A consequence of this was the Pet-name Epoch. In every community of one hundred Englishmen about the year 1300, there would be an average of twenty Johns and fifteen Williams; then would follow Thomas, Bartholomew, Nicholas, Philip, Simon, Peter, and Isaac from the Scriptures, and Richard, Robert, Walter, Henry, Guy, Roger, and Baldwin from the Teutonic list. Of female names, Matilda, Isabella, and Emma were first favourites, and Cecilia, Catharine, Margaret, and Gillian came closely upon their heels. Behind these, again, followed a fairly familiar number of names of either sex, some from the Teuton, some from the Hebrew, some from the Greek and Latin Church, but, when all told, not a large category. It was, of course, impossible for Englishmen and Englishwomen to maintain their individuality on these terms. Various methods to secure a personality arose. The surname was adopted, and there were John Atte-wood, John the Wheelwright, John the Bigg, and John Richard's son, in every community. Among the middle and lower classes these did not become hereditary till so late as 1450 |