Page:A handbook of the Cornish language; Chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature.djvu/217

198 might write themselves down "gentlemen" in the strict heraldic sense if they only knew it. But some names of this class are derived from very small landed possessions, and some probably, as similar names in England, from mere residence, not possession.

2. Patronymics. These are the equivalents of the English names ending in son or s, of the Welsh names beginning with a ( = mab, son), and the Irish and Scottish beginning with mac or O'. They fall into five classes.

a. The Christian name used as a surname without alteration, as Harry, Peter, John, Rawle, Rawe or Rowe (for Ralph or Raoul), Gilbart and Gilbert, Thomas or Thom, Davy, Bennet, Harvey, Tangye, etc.

b. The diminutive of the Christian name, Jenkin, Hodgkin, Rawlin, Tonkin, Eddyvean ( = Little Eddy), Hockin ( = Hawkin, i.e. Harrykin), etc.

c. The Christian name or its diminutive in its English possessive form, as Peters, Johns, Rogers, Jenkins, Rawlings, Roberts, etc.

d. Patronymics formed as in English, German, Dutch, and the Scandinavian languages by adding son, as Johnson, Jackson, Wilson, etc. When these occur in Cornwall they are probably often of English origin.

e. Patronymics formed with the prefix ap (for mab, son), apocopated (as in the Welsh names Probert, Pritchard, Price, Bevan, Bowen) to a p or b. It is possible that to this class may belong Prowse, Prawle (Ap Rowse, Ap Rawle), Bown (Ap Owen?), Budge (Ap Hodge?), Pezzack (Ap Isaac).

The Christian names from which patronymics are formed are not as a rule very peculiar. There are the usual names of the well-known saints, Peter, Paul, Mitchell (Michael), John, James (or in its Cornish form, Jago), Thomas, Matthew, Francis, Dunstan, Bennet, Andrew,