chiefly on the
border of Cheshire and Lancashire, are compounded from bottom or
botham, a wide shallow valley suited for agriculture. Hotspur,
dissatisfied with his fellow-conspirators' map-drawing, expresses his
intention of damming the Trent so that

"It shall not wind with such a deep indent
To rob me of so rich a bottom here."

(1 Henry IV, iii. 1.)

Familiar compounds are Higginbottom, Rowbotham, Sidebottom. The first
element of Shufflebotham is, in the Lancashire Assize Rolls
(1176-1285), spelt Schyppewalle- and Schyppewelle-, where schyppe is
for sheep, still so pronounced in dialect. Tarbottom, earlier
Tarbutton, is corrupted from Tarbolton (Ayrshire).

WATER AND WATERSIDE

RIVERS

Very few surnames are taken, in any language, from the names of
rivers. This is quite natural, for just as the man who lived on a
hill became known as Hill, Peake, etc., and not as Skiddaw or Wrekin,
so the man who lived by the waterside would be known as Bywater,
Rivers, etc. No Londoner talks of going on the Thames, and the
country-dweller also usually refers to his local stream as the river
or the water, and not by its geographical name. Another reason for
the absence of such surnames is probably to be found in the fact that
our river (and mountain) names are almost exclusively Celtic, and had
no connotation for the English population. We have many apparent
river names, but most of them are susceptible of another explanation.
Dee may be for Day as Deakin is for Dakin, i.e. David, Derwent looks
like Darwin (Chapter VII) or the local Darwen with excrescent -t
(Chapter III), Humber is Humbert, a French name corresponding to the
Anglo-Sax, Hunbeorht, Medway may be merely "mid-way," and Trent is a
place in Somerset. This view as to river surnames is supported by the
fact that we do not appear to have a single mountain surname, the
apparent exception, Snowdon, being for Snowden (see den, Dean, Dene,
Denne). [Footnote: But see my Surnames, Chapter XVI.]

Among names for streams we have Beck, [Footnote: The simple Beck is
generally a German name of modern introduction (see pecch).] cognate
with Ger. Bach; Bourne, [Footnote: Distinct from bourne, a boundary,
Fr. borne.] or Burn, cognate with Ger. Brunnen; Brook, related to
break; Crick, a creek; Fleet, a creek, cognate with Flood; and Syke, a
trench or rill. In Beckett and Brockett the suffix is head (Chapter
XIII). Troutbeck, Birkbeck explain themselves. In Co