English Surnames: Their Sources and Significations

by Charles Wareing Endell Bardsley

English Surnames: Their Sources and Significations, first published in 1873, is Charles Wareing Bardsley's survey of how the English came by their family names. Working largely from medieval rolls, subsidy lists and parish registers, he sorts surnames into their main classes: names taken from the father's Christian name, from the place of residence, from occupation and office, and from nicknames describing appearance, character or habits. Along the way he explains how Robin became Robinson and Hobbs, how obsolete trades survive in names like Fletcher and Chaloner, and why so many English surnames preserve medieval jokes. Bardsley was a clergyman with a taste for anecdote, and the book is a readable introduction to a subject later scholars have refined but not replaced. The full text is available to read online in your browser on Vinteuil, and the first chapter is free.