Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 10.djvu/382

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��Origin and Meaning of Profer Names.

��ORIGIN AND MEANING OP PROPER NAMES— [Concluded].

By Edwin D. Sanborn, LL. D.

��The sixth colony were Angles under Ida. The}' came in the year 547, and took possession of the country be- tween the Tweed and Forth in Scot- land. This fact will account for the affinity of the Lowland Scotch and Enolish, as well as for the radical dif- ference between the dialects of the Lowlanders and the Highlanders. The last were remnants of the old Celtic population of the island.

Prior to the year GOO the history of the Saxons in England is uncertain, colored by poetry and mythology. From the first entrance of the Saxons into England, A. D. 449, till A. D. 5S7, eight separate kingdoms called the octarchy were set up, — one Jute, three Saxon, and four Angle. The West Saxons, after long intestine wars, subjugated the other kingdoms and maintained their supremacy, with the brief interruption of 26 years of Danish sway from 1016 to 1042, under Canute and his two sons, till the Nor- man conquest in 1066. The language remained unsubdued, and was spoken by the subjected people till the middle of the thirteenth century.

Local names are usually compounds, the separate elements being descrip- tive of the place, and the most impor- tant word usually comes last in order. Such terminatons as tun, wic, ham, thorp, berg, Clif, cot, feld, and ford are quite common, as Stantun, stone town or enclosure; Sand-wic, Sand- wich or sand village. The term "• wic" is su[)i)Osed to be associated with "vicus" in Latin and ofz«<j in Greek, which, with the primitive digamma

��prefixed, becomes For/.o^, which easily passes into " vicus," and that al)bre- viated becomes " vie," '■'• wic," or " wich," which terminates many local names, as Woolwich, Norwich, Green- wich, Alnwicli, from annick, Harwich, from harridge, Keswich, from kezzick, Dulwich, from dullitch. Ham, Ger- man hein, l^lnglish " home," appears in many names of places, as Hamp- ton, Buckingham, Stone-ham, and the abbreviated forms Barrum, Putnam, and Chetum for Barnhara, Puttenham, and Chethara. The termination is com- mon in Germany, as "heim," "hem,"' and "um," Oppen-heim, Arn-hem, and Hus-ura.

" In Ford, in Ham, in Ley, and Ton, Tlie most ol' English surnames run."

To this distitch Mr. Lower adds the following:

"Injr, Hurst, and Wood, Wich, Stead, and Field, Full many English surnames yield."

"■Tun," ton or town, meaning en- closure, or, in the American sense, a location, shows at sight the local his- tory of many a settlement, as Clay- ton, New-ton, Hil-ton, Nor-ton = Northtown, Sut-ton=:Southtown, Mil- ton=rMiddletown.

The state of New Hampshire lias several towns named from their ear- liest settlers, — as Sanborn-toii (Sand- bourne, oi'iginally, meaning sand boundary, a place of residence), and. Gilman-ton, Gilman being the man of the " Gill," a rivulet or ravine.

JMany places derive their names from the animals that had their homes or lairs in them, — as Oxley and Oxen-

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