Curiosities of Puritan Nomenclature

“1575, Aug. 26. Christened Philpott, a chylde that was laide at Mr Alderman Osberne’s gatt.” – St. Dionis Backchurch.

All the others perished by the time James I. was king. Guy, or Wyatt, succumbed entirely, and the same may be said of the rest. Did we require further confirmation of this, I need only inquire: Would any Yorkshireman now, as he reads over shop-fronts in towns like Leeds or Bradford, or in the secluded villages of Wensleydale or Swaledale, the surnames of Tillot and Tillotson, Emmett and Emmotson, Ibbott, Ibbet, Ibbs, and Ibbotson, know that, twenty years before the introduction of our English Bible, these were not merely the familiar pet names of Matilda, Emma, and Isabella, but that as a trio they stood absolutely first in the scale of frequency? Nay, they comprised more than forty-five per cent. of the female population.

The last registered Ibbot or Issot I have seen is in the Chancery suits at the close of Queen Bess’s reign, wherein Ibote Babyngton and Izott Barne figure in some legal squabbles (“Chancery Suits: Elizabeth,” vol. ii.). As for Sissot, or Drewet, or Doucet, or Fawcett, or Hewet, or Philcock, or Jeffcock, or Batkin, or Phippin, or Lambin, or Perrin, they have passed away – their place knoweth them no more. What a remarkable revolution is this, and so speedy!

Failing our registers, the question may arise whether or not in familiar converse the old pet forms were still used. Our ballads and plays preserve many of the nick forms, but scarcely a pet form is to be seen later than 1590. In 1550 Nicholas Udall wrote “Ralph Roister Doister,” in the very commencement of which Matthew Merrygreek “says or sings” —

“Sometime Lewis Loiterer biddeth me come near:Somewhiles Watkin Waster maketh us good cheer.”

Amongst the dramatis personæ are Dobinet Doughty, Sim Suresby, Madge Mumblecrust, Tibet Talkapace, and Annot Aliface. A few years later came “Gammer Gurton’s Needle.” Both Diccon and Hodge figure in it: two rustics of the most bucolic type. Hodge, after relating how Gib the cat had licked the milk-pan clean, adds —

“Gog’s souls, Diccon, Gib our cat had eat the bacon too.”

Immediately after this, again, in 1568 was printed “Like will to Like.” The chief characters are Tom Tosspot, Hankin Hangman, Pierce Pickpurse, and Nichol Newfangle. Wat Waghalter is also introduced. But here may be said to end this homely and contemporary class of play-names. ’Tis true, in Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Beggar’s Bush,” Higgen (Higgin) is one of the “three knavish beggars,” but the scene is laid in Flanders.

Judging by our songs and comedies, the diminutive forms went down with terrible rapidity, and were practically obsolete before Elizabeth’s death. But this result was more the work of the Reformation at large than Puritanism.

(b.) The Decrease of Nick Forms

This was not all. The nick forms saw themselves reduced to straits. The new godly names, I have said, were not to be turned into irreverent cant terms. From the earliest day of the Reformation every man who gave his child a Bible name stuck to it unaltered. Ebenezer at baptism was Ebenezer among the turnips, Ebenezer with the milk-pail, and Ebenezer in courtship; while Deborah, who did not become Deb till Charles I.’s reign, would Ebenezer him till the last day she had done scolding him, and put “Ebenezer” carefully on his grave, to prove how happily they had lived together!

As for the zealot who gradually forged his way to the front, he gave his brother and sister in the Lord the full benefit of his or her title, whether it was five syllables or seven. There can be no doubt that these Hebrew names did not readily adapt themselves to ordinary converse with the world. Melchisedek and Ebedmelech were all right elbowing their way into the conventicle, but Melchisedek dispensing half-pounds of butter over the counter, or Ebedmelech carrying milk-pails from door to door, gave people a kind of shock. These grand assumptions suggested knavery. One feels certain that our great-grandmothers had a suspicion of tallow in the butter, and Jupiter Pluvius in the pail.

Nor did these excavated names harmonize with the surnames to which they were yoked. Adoniram was quaint enough without Byfield, but both (as Butler, in “Hudibras,” knew) suggested something slightly ludicrous. Byron took a mean advantage of this when he attacked poor Cottle, the bookseller and would-be writer:

“O Amos Cottle! Phœbus! what a nameTo fill the speaking trump of future fame!O Amos Cottle! for a moment thinkWhat meagre profits spring from pen and ink.”

Amos is odd, but Amos united to Cottle makes a smile irresistible.

Who does not agree with Wilkes, who, when speaking to Johnson of Dryden’s would-be rival, the city poet, says —

“Elkanah Settle sounds so queer, who can expect much from that name? We should have no hesitation to give it for John Dryden, in preference to Elkanah Settle, from the names only, without knowing their different merits”?

And Sterne, as the elder Disraeli reminds us, in one of his multitudinous digressions from the life of “Tristram Shandy,” makes the progenitor of that young gentleman turn absolutely melancholy, as he conjures up a vision of all the men who

“might have done exceeding well in the world, had not their characters and spirits been totally depressed, and Nicodemas’d into nothing.”

Even Oliver Goldsmith cannot resist styling the knavish seller of green spectacles by a conjunction of Hebrew and English titles as Ephraim Jenkinson; and his servant, who acts the part of a Job Trotter (another Old Testament worthy, again) to his master, is, of course, Abraham!

But, oddly as such combinations strike upon the modern tympanum, what must not the effect have been in a day when a nickname was popular according as it was curt? How would men rub their eyes in sheer amazement, when such conjunctions as Ebedmelech Gastrell, or Epaphroditus Haughton, or Onesiphorus Dixey, were introduced to their notice, pronounced with all sesquipedalian fulness, following upon the very heels of a long epoch of traditional one-syllabled Ralphs, Hodges, Hicks, Wats, Phips, Bates, and Balls (Baldwin). Conceive the amazement at such registrations as these:

“1599, Sep. 23. Christened Aholiab, sonne of Michaell Nicolson, cordwainer.” – St. Peter, Cornhill.

“1569, June 1. Christened Ezekiell, sonne of Robert Pownall.” – Cant. Cath.

“1582, April 1. Christened Melchisadeck, sonne of Melchizadeck Bennet, poulter.” – St. Peter, Cornhill.

“1590, Dec. 20. Christened Abacucke, sonne of John Tailer.” – Ditto.

“1595, Nov. Christened Zabulon, sonne of John Griffin.” – Stepney.

“1603, Sep. 15. Buried Melchesideck King.” – Cant. Cath.

“1645, July 19. Buried Edward, sonne of Mephibosheth Robins.” – St. Peter, Cornhill.

“1660, Nov. 5. Buried Jehostiaphat (sic) Star.” – Cant. Cath.

“1611, Oct. 21. Baptized Zipporah, d. of Richard Beere, of Wapping.” – Stepney.

The “Chancery Suits” of Elizabeth contain a large batch of such names; and I have already enumerated a list of “Pilgrim Fathers” of James’s reign, whose baptisms would be recorded in the previous century.

But compare this with the fact that the leading men in England at this very time were recognized only by the curtest of abbreviated names. In that very quaint poem of Heywood’s, “The Hierarchie of Blessed Angels,” the author actually makes it the ground of an affected remonstrance:

“Marlowe, renowned for his rare art and wit,Could ne’er attain beyond the name of Kit,Although his Hero and Leander didMerit addition rather. Famous KidWas called but Tom. Tom Watson, though he wroteAble to make Apollo’s self to doteUpon his muse, for all that he could strive,Yet never could to his full name arrive.Tom Nash, in his time of no small esteem,Could not a second syllable redeem.········Mellifluous Shakespeare, whose enchanting quillCommanded mirth or passion, was but Will:And famous Jonson, though his learned penBe dipped in Castaly, is still but Ben.”

However, in the end, he attributes the familiarity to the right cause:

“I, for my part,Think others what they please, accept that heartThat courts my love in most familiar phrase;And that it takes not from my pains or praise,If any one to me so bluntly come:I hold he loves me best that calls me Tom.”

It is Sir Christopher, the curate, who, in “The Ordinary,” rebels against “Kit:”

“Andrew. What may I call your name, most reverend sir?Bagshot. His name’s Sir Kit.Christopher. My name is not so short:’Tis a trisyllable, an’t please your worship;But vulgar tongues have made bold to profane itWith the short sound of that unhallowed idolThey call a kit. Boy, learn more reverence!Bagshot. Yes, to my betters.”

We need not wonder, therefore, that the comedists took their fun out of the new custom, especially in relation to their length and pronunciation in full. In Cowley’s “Cutter of Colman Street,” Cutter turns Puritan, and thus addresses the colonel’s widow, Tabitha:

“Sister Barebottle, I must not be called Cutter any more: that is a name of Cavalier’s darkness; the Devil was a Cutter from the beginning: my name is now Abednego: I had a vision which whispered to me through a key-hole, ‘Go, call thyself Abednego.’”

In his epilogue to this same comedy, Cutter is supposed to address the audience as a “congregation of the elect,” the playhouse is a conventicle, and he is a “pious cushion-thumper.” Gazing about the theatre, he says – through his nose, no doubt —

“But yet I wonder much not to espy aBrother in all this court called Zephaniah.”

This is a better rhyme even than Butler’s

“Their dispensations had been stifledBut for our Adoniram Byfield.”

In Brome’s “Covent Garden Weeded,” the arrival at the vintner’s door is thus described:

“Rooksbill. Sure you mistake him, sir.

Vintner. You are welcome, gentlemen: Will, Harry, Zachary!

Gabriel. Zachary is a good name.

Vintner. Where are you? Shew up into the Phoenix.” – Act. ii. sc. 2.

The contrast between Will or Harry, the nick forms, and Zachary,20 the full name, is intentionally drawn, and Gabriel instantly rails at it.

In “Bartholomew Fair,” half the laughter that convulsed Charles II., his courtiers, and courtezans, was at the mention of Ezekiel, the cut-purse, or Zeal-of-the-land, the baker, who saw visions; while the veriest noodle in the pit saw the point of Squire Cokes’ perpetually addressing his body-man Humphrey in some such style as this:

“O, Numps! are you here, Numps? Look where I am, Numps, and Mistress Grace, too! Nay, do not look so angrily, Numps: my sister is here and all, I do not come without her.”

How the audience would laugh and cheer at a sally that was simply manufactured of a repetition of the good old-fashioned name for Humphrey; and thus a passage that reads as very dull fun indeed to the ears of the nineteenth century, would seem to be brimful of sarcastic allusion to the popular audience of the seventeenth, especially when spoken by such lips as Wintersels.

The same effect was attempted and attained in the “Alchemist.” Subtle addresses the deacon:

“What’s your name?Ananias. My name is Ananias.Subtle. Out, the varletThat cozened the Apostles! Hence away!Flee, mischief! had your holy consistoryNo name to send me, of another sound,Than wicked Ananias? Send your eldersHither, to make atonement for you, quickly,And give me satisfaction: or out goesThe fire …If they stay threescore minutes; the aqueity,Terreity, and sulphureityShall run together again, and all be annulled,Thou wicked Ananias!”

Exit Ananias, and no wonder. Of course, the pit would roar at the expense of Ananias. But Abel, the tobacco-man, who immediately appears in his place, is addressed familiarly as “Nab:”

“Face. Abel, thou art made.Abel. Sir, I do thank his worship.Face. Six o’ thy legs more will not do it, Nab.He has brought you a pipe of tobacco, doctor.Abel. Yes, sir; I have another thing I would impart —Face. Out with it, Nab.Abel. Sir, there is lodged hard by meA rich young widow.”

To some readers there will be little point in this. They will say “Abel,” as an Old Testament name, should neither have been given to an un-puritanic character, nor ought it to have been turned into a nickname. This would never have occurred to the audience. Abel, or Nab, had been one of the most popular of English names for at least three centuries before the Reformation. Hence it was never used by the Puritans, and was, as a matter of course, the undisturbed property of their enemies. Three centuries of bad company had ruined Nab’s morals. The zealot would none of it.21

But from all this it will be seen that a much better fight was made in behalf of the old nick forms than of the diminutives. By a timely rally, Tom, Jack, Dick, and Harry were carried, against all hindrances, into the Restoration period, and from that time they were safe. Wat, Phip, Hodge, Bat or Bate, and Cole lost their position, but so had the fuller Philip, Roger, Bartholomew, and Nicholas, But the opponents of Puritanism carried the war into the enemy’s camp in revenge for this, and Priscilla, Deborah, Jeremiah, and Nathaniel, although they were rather of the Reformation than Puritanic introductions, were turned by the time of Charles I. into the familiar nick forms of Pris, Deb, Jerry, and Nat. The licentious Richard Brome, in “The New Academy,” even attempts a curtailment of Nehemiah:

“Lady Nestlecock. Negh, Negh!Nehemiah. Hark! my mother comes.Lady N. Where are you, childe? Negh!Nehemiah. I hear her neighing after me.”Act iv. sc. 1. (1658).

It was never tried out of doors, however, and the experiment was not repeated. Brome was still more scant in reverence to Damaris. In “Covent Garden Weeded” Madge begins “the dismal story:”

“This gentlewoman whose name is Damaris —

Nich. Damyris, stay: her nickname then is Dammy: so we may call her when we grow familiar; and to begin that familiarity – Dammy, here’s to you. (Drinks.)”

After this she is Dammy in the mouth of Nicholas throughout the play. This, too, was a failure. Indeed, it demonstrates a remarkable reverence for their Bible on the part of the English race, that every attempt to turn one of its names into a nick form (saving in some three or four instances) has ignominiously failed. We mean, of course, since the Reformation.

The Restoration was a great restoration of nick forms. Such names as had survived were again for a while in full favour, and the reader has only to turn to the often coarse ballads and songs contained in such collections as Tom d’Urfey’s “Pills to Purge Melancholy” to see how Nan, Sis, Sib, Kate, and Doll had been brought back to popular favour. It was but a spurt, however, in the main. As the lascivious reaction from the Puritanic strait-lacedness in some degree spent itself, so did the newly restored fashion, and when the eighteenth century brought in a fresh innovation, viz. the classic forms, such as Beatrix, Maria, Lætitia, Carolina, Louisa, Amelia, Georgina, Dorothea, Prudentia, Honora – an innovation that for forty years ran like an epidemic through every class of society, and was sarcastically alluded to by Goldsmith in Miss Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs, and the sisters Olivia and Sophia – the old nick forms once more bade adieu to English society, and now enjoy but a partial favour. But Bill, Tom, Dick, and Harry still hold on like grim death. Long may they continue to do so!

(c.) The Decay of Saint and Festival Names

There were some serious losses in hagiology. Names that had figured in the calendar for centuries fared badly; Simon, Peter, Nicholas, Bartholomew, Philip, and Matthew, from being first favourites, lapsed into comparative oblivion. Some virgins and martyrs of extra-Biblical repute, like Agnes, Ursula, Catharine, Cecilia, or Blaze, crept into the registers of Charles’s reign, but they had then become but shadows of their former selves.

‘Sis’ is often found in D’Urfey’s ballads, but it only proves the songs themselves were old ones, or at any rate the choruses, for Cecilia was practically obsolete:

“1574, Oct. 8. Buried Cisly Weanewright, ye carter’s wife.” – St. Peter, Cornhill.

“1578, June 1. Buried Cissellye, wife of Gilles Lambe.” – St. Dionis Backchurch.

“1547, Dec. 26. Married Thomas Bodnam and Urcylaye Watsworth.” – Ditto.

“1654, Sep. 20. Buried Ursley, d. of John Fife.” – St. Peter, Cornhill.

It was now that Awdry gave way:

“1576, Sept. 7. Buryed Awdry, the widow of – Seward.” – St. Peter, Cornhill.

“1610, May 27. Baptized Awdrey, d. of John Cooke, butcher.” – St. Dionis Backchurch.

St. Blaze,22 the patron saint of wool-combers and the nom-de-plume of Gil Blas, has only a church or two to recall his memory to us now. But he lived into Charles’s reign:

“Blaze Winter was master of Stodmarsh Hospital, when it was surrendered to Queen Elizabeth, 1575.” – Hasted’s “History of Kent.”

“1550, May 23. Baptized Blaze, daughter of – Goodwinne.” – St. Peter, Cornhill.

“1555, Julie 21. Wedding of Blase Sawlter and Collis Smith.” – Ditto.

“1662, May 6. Blase Whyte, one of ye minor cannons, to Mrs. Susanna Wright, widow.” – Cant. Cath.

This is the last instance I have seen. Hillary shared the same fate:

“1547, Jan. 30. Married Hillarye Finch and Jane Whyte.” – St. Dionis Backchurch.

“1557, June 27. Wedding of Hillary Wapolle and Jane Garret.” – St. Peter, Cornhill.

“1593, Jan. 20. Christening of Hillary, sonne of Hillary Turner, draper.” – Ditto.

Bride is rarely found in England now:

“1556, May 22. Baptized Bryde, daughter of – Stoakes.

“1553, Nov. 27. Baptized Bryde, daughter of – Faunt.” – St. Peter, Cornhill.

Benedict, which for three hundred years had been known as Bennet, as several London churches can testify, became well-nigh extinct; but the feminine Benedicta, with Bennet for its shortened form, suddenly arose on its ashes, and flourished for a time:

“1517, Jan. 28. Wedding of William Stiche and Bennet Bennet, widow.” – St. Peter, Cornhill.

“1653, Sep. 29. Married Richard Moone to Benedicta Rolfe.” – Cant. Cath.

“1575, Jan. 25. Baptized Bennett, son of John Langdon.” – St. Columb Major.

These feminines are sometimes bothering. Look, for instance, at this:

“1596, Feb. 6. Wedding of William Bromley and Mathew Barnet, maiden, of this parish.” – St. Peter, Cornhill.

“1655, Sep. 24. Married Thomas Budd, miller, and Mathew Larkin, spinster.” – Ditto.

The true spelling should have been Mathea, which, previous to the Reformation, had been given to girls born on St. Matthew’s Day.23 The nick form Mat changed sexes. In “Englishmen for my Money” Walgrave says —

“Nay, stare not, look you here: no monster I, But even plain Ned, and here stands Mat my wife.”

Appoline, all of whose teeth were extracted at her martyrdom with pincers, was a favourite saint for appeal against toothache. In the Homily “Against the Perils of Idolatry,” it is said —

“All diseases have their special saints, as gods, the curers of them: the toothache, St. Appoline.”24

Scarcely any name for girls was more common than this for a time; up to the Commonwealth period it contrived to exist. Take St. Peter, Cornhill, alone:

“1593, Jan. 13. Christened Apeline, d. of John Moris, clothworker.

“1609, Mch. 11. Christened Apoline, d. of Willm. Burton, marchant.

“1617, June 29. Buried Appelyna, d. of Thomas Church.”

Names from the great Church festivals fared as badly as those from the hagiology. The high day of the ecclesiastical calendar is Easter. We have more relics of this festival than any other. Pasche Oland or Pascoe Kerne figure in the Chancery suits of Elizabeth. Long before this the Hundred Rolls had given us a Huge fil. Pasche, and a contemporary record contained an Antony Pascheson. The different forms lingered till the Commonwealth:

“1553, Mch. 23. Baptized Pascall, son of John Davye.” – St. Dionis Backchurch.

“1651, Mch. 18. Married Thomas Strato and Paskey Prideaux.” – St. Peter’s, Cornhill.

“1747, May 4. Baptized Rebekah, d. of Pasko and Sarah Crocker.” – St. Dionis Backchurch.

“1582, June 14. Baptized Pascow, son-in-law of Pascowe John.” – St. Columb Major.

Pascha Turner, widow, was sister of Henry Parr, Bishop of Worcester.

The more English “Easter” had a longer survival, but this arose from its having become confounded with Esther. To this mistake it owes the fact that it lived till the commencement of the present century:

“April, 1505. Christened Easter, daughter of Thomas Coxe, of Wapping.” – Stepney.

“May 27, 1764. Buried Easter Lewis, aged 56 years.” – Lidney, Glouc.

“July 27, 1654. Married Thomas Burton, marriner, and Easter Taylor.” – St. Peter, Cornhill.

Epiphany, or Theophania (shortened to Tiffany), was popular with both sexes, but the ladies got the chief hold of it.

“Megge Merrywedyr, and Sabyn Sprynge,Tiffany Twynkeler, fayle for no thynge,”

says one of our old mysteries. This form succumbed at the Reformation. Tyffanie Seamor appears as defendant about 1590, however (“Chancery Suits: Eliz.”), and in Cornwall the name reached the seventeenth century:

“1594, Nov. 7. Baptized Typhenie, daughter of Sampson Bray.

“1600, June 21. Baptized Tiffeny, daughter of Harry Hake.” – St. Columb Major.

The following is from Banbury register:

“1586, Jan. 9. Baptized Epiphane, ye sonne of Ambrose Bentley.”25

Epiphany Howarth records his name also about 1590 (“Chancery Suits: Eliz.”), and a few years later he is once more met with in a State paper (C. S. P. 1623-25):

“1623, June. Account of monies paid by Epiphan Haworth, of Herefordshire, recusant, since Nov. 11, 1611, £6 10 0.”

This Epiphan is valuable as showing the transition state between Epiphania and Ephin, the latter being the form that ousted all others:

“1563, March 14. Christening of Ephin King, d. of – King.

“1564, June 30. Christening of Effam, d. of John Adlington.

“1620, March 30. Frauncis, sonne of Alexander Brounescome, and Effym, his wife, brought a bead at Mr. Vowell’s house.

“1635, Jan. 28. Buried Epham Vowell, widow.” – St. Peter, Cornhill.

But Ephin was not a long liver, and by the time of the Restoration had wholly succumbed. The last entry I have seen is in the Westminster Abbey register:

“1692, Jan. 25. Buried Eppifania Cakewood, an almsman’s wife.”

Pentecost was more sparely used. In the “Rotuli Litterarum Clausarum in Turri Londonensi” occur both Pentecost de London (1221) and Pentecost Servicus, and a servitor of Henry III. bore the only name of “Pentecost” (“Inquis., 13 Edw. I.,” No. 13). This name was all but obsolete soon after the Reformation set in, but it lingered on till the end of the seventeenth century.

“1577, May 25. Baptized Pentecost, daughter of Robert Rosegan.” – St. Columb Major.

“1610, May 27. Baptized Pentecost, d. of William Tremain.” – Ditto.

“August 7, 1696. Pentecost, daughter of Mr. Ezekel and Pentecost Hall, merchant, born and baptized.” – St. Dionis Backchurch.

Noel shared the same fate. The Hundred Rolls furnish a Noel de Aubianis, while the “Materials for a History of Henry VII.” (p. 503) mentions a Nowell Harper:

“1486, July 16. General pardon to Nowell Harper, late of Boyleston, co. Derby, gent.”

“1545, Dec. 20. Baptized Nowell, son of William Mayhowe.” – St. Columb Major.

“1580, March 1. Baptized James, son of Nowell Mathew.” – Ditto.

“1627. Petition of Nowell Warner.” – “C. S. P. Domestic,” 1627-8.

Noel still struggled gamely, and died hard, seeing the eighteenth century well in:

“1706, April 23. Noell Whiteing, son of Noell and Ann Whiteing, linendraper, baptized.” – St. Dionis Backchurch.

Again the Reformation, apart from Puritanism, had much to do with the decay of these names.

(d.) The Last of some Old Favourites

There were some old English favourites that the Reformation and the English Bible did not immediately crush. Thousands of men were youths when the Hebrew invasion set in, and lived unto James’s reign. Their names crop up, of course, in the burial registers. Others were inclined to be tenacious over family favourites. We must be content, in the records of Elizabeth’s and even James’s reign, to find some old friends standing side by side with the new. The majority of them were extra-Biblical, and therefore did not meet with the same opposition as those that savoured of the old ecclesiasticism. Nevertheless, this new fashion was telling on them, and of most we may say, “Their places know them no more.”