:pokes naming conventions:

[burntcopper]

Huh. Most north european countries, when the surname denotes that someone comes from somewhere, stick the equivalent of the prefix 'of' or 'from' in the front - de, van der, von, de la, te, van t', da, di and so on. How the hell did the English escape this? Our language is descended from germanic/dutch/friesian with Norman French laid over the top of it. Was it a post-invasion of Britain by Saxons thing? The only example I can think of is 'a' - and the only actual name I can think of that has it is Allan a Dale, and that's medieval which appears to have died out completely. Cornish uses Pen, Tre and Pol, but that's Celtic, not English.

All the prefixes I can think of in English surnames mean 'son/daughter of', (o', mac/mc, fitz) and they're all other languages, since 'son of' in northern european non-latin non-celt languages tends to be a suffix.

Comments

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

yeah, the only reason you normally had placename of somewhere if you weren't posh was when you'd moved. English is the only one I can find where we don't have the 'of/from' prefix when that happened.

You're right!

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

John of Gaunt was, of course, born in Ghent

The Sheriff of Nottingham, Duke of Buckingham, Anne of Cleaves (or Green Gables) ... not their "real" names, but how we'd describe them in English.

Even in nicknames it's as usual to stick the place name on the front (Portland Bill, Pawatuxet Pete, London Jim).

In non-mobile England/Britain (Britain was "England" for a fair chunk of history, aside from the bits that were separate!) you were indeed "Jim the dogshaggercatcher" or "Ivor the Engine" as you were identified by your job within your community, which is possibly why wives were "Mrs. John Smith" as their role in society was as a wife to a man with a job. And this contracted to John Cooper, Bill Shakespear and so on.

The landed gentry were using titles and so were "Lord of Malmesbury" or "Laird of Kilcatholics" or "Duke of Bassey" and "Earl of Heinz", or even "John, 4th Earl of Greytea", as they were mobile and went to court or abroad, and so where they were from was important.

And the only time nowadays we commonly use "Dave from Birmingham" is in radio phone-ins!

I have no answers, just this posting has been very interesting and thought-provoking ... thank you!