as been swallowed up. Walker,
i.e. trampler, meant a cloth fuller, but another origin has helped to
swell the numbers of the clan--
"Walkers are such as are otherwise called foresters. They are
foresters assigned by the King, who are walkers within a certain space
of ground assigned to their care" (Cowel's Interpreter).
Cooper, a derivative of Lat. cupa or cuppa, a vessel, is cognate with
the famous French name Cuvier, which has given our Cover, though this
may also be for coverer, i.e. tiler (Chapter XV).
Of occupative names which have also an official meaning, the three
commonest are Ward, Bailey, and Marshall. Ward, originally abstract,
is the same word as Fr. garde. Bailey, Old Fr. bailif (bailli),
ranges from a Scottish magistrate to a man in possession. It is
related to bail and to bailey, a ward in a fortress, as in Old Bailey.
Bayliss may come from the Old French nominative bailis (Chapter I), or
may be formed like Parsons, etc. (Chapter XV). Marshall (Chapter XX)
may stand for a great commander or a shoeing-smith, still called
farrier-marshal in the army. The first syllable is cognate with mare
and the second means servant. Constable, Lat. comes stabuli,
stableman, has a similar history.
THE DISTRIBUTION OF NAMES
The commonest local names naturally include none taken from particular
places. The three commonest are Hall, Wood and Green, from residence
by the great house, the wood, and the village green. Cf. the French
names Lasalle, Dubois, Dupre. Hall is sometimes for Hale (Chapter
II), and its Old French translation is one source of Sale. Next to
these come Hill, Moore, and Shaw (Chapter XII); but Lee would probably
come among the first if all its variants were taken into account
(Chapter III).
Of baptismal names used unaltered as surnames the six commonest are
Thomas, Lewis, Martin, James, Morris, Morgan. Here again the Welsh
element is strong, and four of these names, ending in -s, belong also
to the next group, i.e. the class of surnames formed from the genitive
of baptismal names. The frequent occurrence of Lewis is partly due to
its being adopted as a kind of translation of the Welsh Llewellyn, but
the name is often a disguised Jewish Levi, and has nearly absorbed the
local Lewes. Next to the above come Allen, Bennett, Mitchell, all of
French introduction. Mitchell may have been reinforced by Mickle, the
northern for Bigg. It is curious that these particularly common
nam
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