Volume 1

English surnames : An essay on family nomenclature, historical, etymological, and humorous; with several illustrative appendices / by Mark Antony Lower, M.A.

  • Mark Antony Lower
Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: English surnames : An essay on family nomenclature, historical, etymological, and humorous; with several illustrative appendices / by Mark Antony Lower, M.A. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    by a succession of shades and tints which are almost imperceptible ; and he will find it diffi- cult to determine with undeviating accuracy whether many of the names he investigates be primitive, derivative, or contingent; or to trace them through all the devious and uncertain etymologies in which they are imbedded and entwined.” Having thus mentioned what my predecessors have done, it may be expected that I should give some account of my own humble labours. But as they are before the reader, I shall con- tent myself with borrowing the words of Ver- stegan : Because men are naturally desirous to know as much as they may, and are much pleased to understand of their own offspring [descent] which by their Surnames may well be discerned, if they be Surnames of continuance, I have, herein, as near as I can, endeavoured myself to give the courteous reader satisfaction” And, as I have been actuated by this desire, I deem it but justice to myself to state, that if I have assigned to any name a meaning that is little complimentary to the persons who happen to bear it, it has been the farthest from my in- tention to insult their feelings. So little has this been my wish or my endeavour, that I have^ on the contrary, made it one of my chief objects to investigate the etymology of many names
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