es, Martin, Allen, Bennett (Benedict), Mitchell (Michael), have
formed comparatively few derivatives and are generally found in their
unaltered form. Three of them are from famous saints' names, while
Allen, a Breton name which came in with the Conquest, has probably
absorbed to some extent the Anglo-Saxon name Alwin (Chapter VII).
Martin is in some cases an animal nickname, the marten. Among the
genitives Jones, Williams, and Davi(e)s lead easily, followed by
Evans, Roberts, and Hughes, all Welsh in the main. Among the twelve
commonest names of this class those that are not preponderantly Welsh
are Roberts, Edwards, Harris, Phillips, and Rogers. Another Welsh
patronymic, Price (Chapter VI), is among the fifty commonest English
names.

The classification of names in -son raises the difficult question as
to whether Jack represents Fr. Jacques, or whether it comes from
Jankin, Jenkin, dim. of John. [Footnote: See E. B. Nicholson, The
Pedigree of Jack.]

Taking Johnson and Jackson as separate names, we get the order
Johnson, Robinson, Wilson, Thompson, Jackson, Harrison. The variants
of Thompson might put it a place or two higher. Names in -kins
(Distribution of names, Chapter IV), though very numerous in some
regions, are not so common as those in the above classes. It would be
hard to say which English font-name has given the largest number of
family names. In Chapter V. will be found some idea of the
bewildering and multitudinous forms they assume. It has been
calculated, I need hardly say by a German professor, that the possible
number of derivatives from one given name is 6, 000, but fortunately
most of the seeds are abortive.

Of nicknames Brown, Clark, and White are by far the commonest. Then
comes King, followed by the two adjectival nicknames Sharp and Young.

The growth of towns and facility of communication are now bringing
about such a general movement that most regions would accept Brown,
Jones and Robinson as fairly typical names. But this was not always
so. Brown is still much commoner in the north than in the south, and
at one time the northern Johnson and Robinson contrasted with the
southern Jones and Roberts, the latter being of comparatively modern
origin in Wales (Chapter IV). Even now, if we take the farmer class,
our nomenclature is largely regional, and the directories even of our
great manufacturing towns represent to a great extent the medieval
population of the rural district a