When tracing genealogical links, it’s not uncommon to hear reference to surnames that arrived in England along with William the Conqueror. For some reason the English are fond of aspiring to a connection with 11th century pillaging Frenchmen.
Our surnames are not a happy accident, creatively composed by our predecessors. They all have a meaning, albeit relating to a location, typical family occupation or some other connection such as Peterson – or simply put, the son of Peter. Before the Norman Conquest, in Britain people were often known by what we might think of as a nickname for example, Little John or Jane of the Woods. My maiden name is Meikle and we believe it originates from the Danes, meaning great or large. My father is 6’4” and my daughter is 5’11” lending credence to our theory that we were labelled according to our predisposition to height.
As society has moved away from identifying individuals in the fashion of Jane of the Woods, why did we then always traditionally take our father’s surname? Simply because historically women had so little agency. To "claim" a child as his own a man would give it his own family name in the same way that his wife would also be his property. For a very traditional catholic country, the Spanish are happily very modern in this context; any person born into a Spanish family is given a first name followed by two surnames, the first being the father's family name followed by the mother's family name.
The world that we live in today is probably more diverse and multicultural than ever before. As a result, names and spellings are being refashioned as never before. Censuses from the 1800’s and early 1900’s demonstrate how typical it was to reuse and repeat Christian names century after century in the same family – these patterns making life slightly easier for the genealogist to corroborate research. Frequently even if an earlier child in the family had died, a later born child might take that very same Christian name. Nowadays there is a definite shift from tradition to style.
Censuses in the United Kingdom were first introduced in 1841. Each household was required to complete name, age, sex, occupation and place of birth. Often both men and women were unable to sign their own name and might have had no idea how their name ‘should’ have been spelled and as such were unable to check official records that were being recorded by clerks, ministers, census enumerators etc on their behalf. Names may have been abbreviated or familiarised and similar sounding names could converge over time. Pronunciation and local dialect would also have had a part to play in the resulting variety of spellings that were recorded.
Putting the royal household to one side, celebrities today must feel some pressure to really go off piste when selecting names for their precious newborns. Let’s face it, if you’re trying to line up alongside Cruz, Brooklyn, Apple, Lourdes or Moses – sadly Matthew or Jane just isn’t going to cut it. When choosing our eldest child’s name back in 2002, our shortlist included Patrick, Peter, Annabel, Jessica, Thomas, Olivia: a pretty standard line up at the time. It wasn’t until I took Georgina Hannah Marie along to our first baby group and we met baby Bono and baby Elvis that I reflected; too classic, too old school? We went less formal second time around. When my mother came to meet her new grandson, I speculated (aloud and still in the hospital) whether we might go with Jonty or Jonjo. Her response … were these some sort of made up gypsy names? … happily, helped secure our decision and with his very blond hair and blue eyes no one has ever suggested Jonty might be from Romany descent.
As the world becomes smaller and we become more creative and have greater freedom with our choices, how will our grandchildren identify their offspring? Clearly our names are our identity without which who or what would we be? A number? Perhaps Elon Musk’s choice for his son, X Æ A-12 is a sign of the times.
