furnished by the registration indexes, was inserted. This table presented a list of the fifty most ordinary family titles of England and Wales, giving the numbers of persons registered under each title within a certain specified period. We will here insert the names in the order which they were found to assume. First on the list, as would be expected, came Smith. Then followed Jones (2), Williams (3), Taylor (4), Davies (5), Brown (6), Thomas (7), Evans (8), Roberts (9), Johnson (10), Robinson (11), Wilson (12), Wright (13), Wood (14), Hall (15), Walker (16), Hughes (17), Green (18), Lewis (19), Edwards (20), Thompson (21), White (22), Jackson (23), Turner (24), Hill (25), Harris (26), Clark (27), Cooper (28), Harrison (29), Davis (30), Ward (31), Baker (32), Martin (33), Morris (34), James (35), Morgan (36), King (37), Allen (38), Clarke (39), Cook (40), Moore (41), Parker (42), Price (43), Phillips (44), Watson (45), Shaw (46), Lee (47), Bennett (48), Carter (49), and Griffiths (50).

Our limits being necessarily narrow, we will confine our remarks to one-half of the above titles; and in order, first, to give some notion as to the proportion which the owners of the names from No. 1 to No. 25 inclusive bear to the population of the country, we will here insert the numbers of births registered under each of those appellations during 1865 -the latest year for which the registration indexes have at present been completely prepared-adding the total of births recorded in England and Wales during the same time. It will be seen that we place the names in the sequence assigned to them by the Registrar-General upon the warrant of his own more extended observations, although the period of one year is insufficient to arrange the numbers in their precisely corresponding order. The titles and their figures stand thus:—

The various families then bearing the above twenty-five titles contributed to the population of England and Wales during the year 1865, no less than 90,234 infants. The total number of births registered in the same space of time was 748,069; and thus nearly an eighth part of the babyhood belonging to the year was included under the foregoing names. The question naturally arises, what circumstances have given to these

particular titles so great a frequency? We shall endeavour to meet the inquiry, and for that purpose will consider the names in order.

The predominance of Smith as an English surname can only be accounted for by the former extremely wide application of the term which originated the title. The smith of the middle ages represented a vast number of the most ordinary mechanical needs of the people, and he was everywhere. No other handicraft was at the same time so indispensable and so inclusive as his; none, accordingly, employed so many individuals; and by consequence none has left so wide an impression upon our nomenclature. An inquiry into the causes which may have operated to secure to certain men the titles of their occupations in preference to names of other classes would not be without interest. It has been remarked that the selection of particular surnames in the first instance was, for the most part, an arbitrary matter; and that the men who received their titles from their trades were just as likely to have been named after their fathers, or from the situation of their residences. But we venture to think that much may reasonably be urged against this proposition. Let us suppose that two men, residing within a short distance of each other, are similarly engaged as smiths. One-like the "mighty man" of Longfellow-is a person of energetic devotion to his craft, of much physical strength, and of forcible moral character; while the other follows from mere habit and necessity, and in a tame and spiritless manner, the trade taught him in his youth. Can there be any doubt which of the two will be the more likely to be named after his occupation? The first is the smith par excellence ; when choosing for him a distinctive title his neighbours forget in his strong personality the surroundings of his home and the name of his father, and call him by the title of that useful work with which his diligence and skill identify him. Not so the second. Whatever causes may operate to provide him with an appellation, they will in all probability be quite apart from his handicraft, which by lack of zeal and spirit he fails to assimilate to himself. We cannot help thinking then that the names denoting occupations must have pointed, in a very large number of cases, to individual energy and excellence on the part of those who originally received them; and for this reason we regard them as a highly honourable class of titles.

The names which stand second and third on our list are Jones and Williams. These introduce us to the patronymics, and are, as it is scarcely necessary to remind the reader, mainly to be found in Wales, so that if the Principality had been cut off from our calculations, they most certainly would not have appeared in our catalogue at all. Our fellowsubjects in Wales have always been far behind us in the matter of personal and family nomenclature. When, after long delay, they at last adopted our system of surnames in substitution for a cumbersome denominational method of their own, they seem to have selected and adhered to the simplest of all our classes of appellations almost. to the exclusion of the rest. We find them now complying with the fashions of modern nomen

clature (but in a very imperfect manner), by employing as surnames an extremely limited number of baptismal titles in their genitive form-the addition of the possessive s being their equivalent for our patronymic termination son. Thus Jones (i. e. John's) is the same name as Johnson; and Williams (William's) as Williamson. The Welsh people exhibit exactly the same lack of enterprise in their selection of baptismal names at the present day. Although the extreme paucity of their surnames, which must often be productive of serious inconvenience, might to some extent be compensated by variety in their Christian names, they nevertheless adhere to a few well-worn titles with remarkable tenacity; and as the registration indexes show, have recourse to a second baptismal name much less frequently than their English neighbours. To account, therefore, for the positions occupied by the two titles we are now considering, we have only to remember this tendency on the part of the Welsh, by reason of which the bulk of their population has been included under a very small number of surnames. That Jones should be the most prominent name of the class under our notice is easily explained, since in every country which has embraced Christianity St. John's character has always been supremely popular, and his name most frequently conferred at the baptismal font. It will be observed that the difference between the numbers relating to Jones and Williams is very considerable; a discrepancy which doubtless approximately represents the distance formerly intervening between the Christian names John and William in the popular estimation of Wales.

The patronymic or sire-name is, perhaps, the least interesting of our varieties of cognomina, since it suggests nothing directly as to the individual who first bore it. It does, indeed, disrespectfully hint that he may have been wanting in any striking characteristics of his own; and viewed in this light, it affords valuable corroborative evidence of the force and significance of other titles. It was probably often the means insensibly adopted to designate those who in no way specially distinguished themselves. In Wales, however, it is so universal, that on this hypothesis we should be obliged to people the Principality with nonentities; we therefore conclude that in that portion of the country it merely represents such a general preference for the simplest form of personal distinction as overrides the taste for titles of a more specific and descriptive character. This vast preponderance of the patronymic amongst the Welsh, renders their family nomenclature far less interesting than that of England.

Taylor, a surname of general distribution among the English counties, brings us back to the occupations. The importance and usefulness of the trade seem to account for the prominence of the title.

Davies, which stands fifth on our list, is another Welsh patronymic. The personal name Dawfydd (David) belongs to the days of purely Keltic history, and has ever since been a characteristic national title in the Principality. Taffy is the familiar form of the word. If to the number of the Davieses we add that of the persons who bear the somewhat differently spelt but really identical name, Davis, the united family will appear third

in our catalogue, taking its place between the Joneses and the Williamses, and showing that the title of the Jewish king who "sang sweet songs," must formerly have been nearly as commonly conferred in baptism as that of the favourite character of Christian story, St. John.

Brown calls our attention to a new class of names, viz. those which are derived from the physical characteristics of their first bearers. In conjunction with this appellation we may consider White-the only other kindred surname upon our roll-which, it will be seen, occupies the twenty-second place in the list.

It is clear that the personal traits which originated nicknames-which nicknames in many cases have been converted into permanent family titles must have been more or less exceptional in their nature. They would otherwise never have attracted attention or provoked comment. Bearing this in mind, we should naturally expect to find that amongst a fair-haired, fair-complexioned race, such as our own, the dark and swarthy men, proportionately few in number but collectively forming no inconsiderable body, would be those whose skin would most frequently excite notice and originate a distinguishing name. Accordingly, we are not surprised to observe that the title Brown occupies a far more prominent position amongst us than White. With respect to this last-mentioned name, moreover, there appears to be a doubt whether it was in all cases originated by peculiarity of complexion at all. A Saxon word having no reference to colour, and which may frequently explain the title, not improbably sweeps off a large number of the Whites into an entirely different category of names from that attributable to personal characteristics. Be this, however, as it may, the Browns are twice as numerous as the Whites, even without any such reduction. Whenever the name White actually had reference to complexion, we may be certain that the singularity referred to was strongly marked; and the same observation may be made with regard to all titles occasioned by physical qualities of whatever kind. The class of names created in this manner is no small one. Many common appellations which belong to it will readily occur to the reader, such as Black, Little, Long, Short, Small, and Strong.

Thomas, Evans, and Roberts, Nos. 7, 8, and 9, next claim our attention. Hughes, Lewis, and Edwards, which occupy places in our catalogue numbered respectively, 17, 19, and 20, may also here be disposed of. All the six names are patronymics, having their head-quarters in Wales, and owing their numerical positions entirely to that monotonous taste on the subject of nomenclature which we have already noticed as characterizing the Welsh people. The relative frequency of these surnames must doubtless depend, in a great measure at least, upon the comparative favour which their representative Christian names formerly met with at the font; and it is not easy, or indeed possible, in all cases to unravel the tangled circumstances which may have rendered these different baptismal titles more or less common at the time during which surnames were coming into general use. Evans is the genitive of an old Welsh

name equivalent to John, and its position reasserts the wide popularity of that appellation. It may occasion some surprise that Edward, the name of the "ruthless king," the once hated conqueror of Wales, on whose banners the bard invokes "confusion," should have originated a large number of family titles in the Principality. But, as it has been observed, surnames only became settled in Wales during the last two or three centuries, when all prejudice against Saxon rule and Saxon nomenclature had had time to pass out of the Welsh mind.

Hitherto the properly English names which we have considered have been those relative only to occupations and to personal peculiarities. We now come to three genuinely English titles of the patronymic class. The ever-prominent John meets us at the outset, but with the suffix son by way of termination in the place of the possessive s of Wales. This termination is of Scandinavian origin, and its prevalence amongst us is regarded as a relic of the Danish conquests.* We may remark in passing that the name John maintains as a baptismal appellation in England exactly the same supremacy in the present day which the position of the derivative now under our notice declares it to have asserted for itself formerly. It is shown by the registration indexes to be the most common man's name in the country. Next in frequency comes William; and the ten appellations which most nearly approach these in commonness succeed them in the following order: Thomas, James, George, Henry, Joseph, Robert, Edward, Charles, Richard, and David. Amongst these male titles, however, several female names are interspersed.

Robinson succeeds Johnson in the list, being nearly as common as its predecessor. The name Robert came to us with the Normans, and must soon have become popular. In common with most of the old baptismal titles, it has originated a large number of distinct surnames in addition to its more obvious derivatives. By way of example we will here introduce a list of those family names of which, either directly or through its nicked and abbreviated forms, it is the father. We have found as many as fifty-one of these kindred titles-several of which, indeed, appear in Mr. Lower's Patronymica Britannica heretofore quoted. They are as under: Bobbett, Bobbin, Bobby, Bobin, Bobkin, Dobson, Dobb, Dobbie, Dobbin, Dobbins, Dobbinson, Dobbs, Dobby, Hobb, Hobbes, Hobbins, Hobbis, Hobbs, Hobby, Hobkins, Hobkinson, Hoby, Hopkin, Hopkings, Hopkins, Hopkinson, Probert, Probyn (these two last from the old Welsh ap-Robert and ap-Robin, i.e. son of Robert and son of Robin), Robson, Robarts, Robb, Robbens, Robbie, Robbins, Roberson, Robert, Roberts, Robertshall, Robertshaw, Robertson, Robeson, Robings, Robinsin, Robinson, Robison, Robjohn, Robjohns, Roblin, Robshaw, Robson, and Roby.

It must not be supposed that this list of derivatives is by any means exceptionally long. Several of the personal names which became common

* See The Teutonic Name-system. By ROBERT FERGUSON. London, 1864, p. 32.