Page:A handbook of the Cornish language; Chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature.djvu/216

Rh their ordinary English names. The prefix lan, originally an enclosure (cf. the English lawn), but later used to signify a church with its churchyard, is still frequently found, with occasional variants of la, lam, and land, but it is nothing like so frequent as the Welsh equivalent llan. In earlier days it was more common in Cornwall than it is now, and a number of parishes which now have the prefix " Saint " appear in the Domesday Survey with Lan.

The family names of Cornwall, omitting those of the few great Norman houses, Granvilles, Bevilles, Fortescues, Bassets, St. Aubyns, Glanvilles, etc., which do not concern us at present, fall into at least four classes.

1. Names derived from places.

or as Camden more correctly expands it at the expense of metre:—

And he might have added many more prefixes. It is probable that many of these names originated in the possession of the estates of the same names. Of this class are such names as Trelawny, Rosevear, Polwhele, Lanyon, Carlyon, and Penrose. To the ordinary Saxon they sound highly aristocratic, and are introduced into modern "up country" novels in a way that is often amusing to a Cornishman, and no doubt many of them do represent the names of families of past or present gentility, for in Cornwall, as in the Scottish Highlands, armigerous gentry were and are very thick on the ground, and a very large number of Cornishmen of every class and occupation