Naming Laws from 1300 query

[Edie]

Hi,

the PLACE lise I am on are just now trying to get members to do a DNA test back to wehn surnames begin and to connect up to individual familiy lines.

I have been wondering back in the 1300's was there some sort of law when naming your family. IE It must have been difficult when two or more men decided to name themselves PLACE when they were no relation whtever with another. Back then would there have been some sort of law to prevent too many of the same name because of mix ups. Would ther have been something similar to the Deed Poll one needs to pay for to become a certain anme . Would there have only been allowed the one man say call himself PLACE snd that was soley his family name , or was ther no control over names at all. Did one have to register by law their surname and was there only so many who could name themselves any one name. I may not be making sense, but hope someone can help me on this one.

Thankyou
Edie

[Gjest]

On Feb 23, 3:50 pm, "Edie" <[email protected]> wrote:

Hi,

the PLACE lise I am on are just now trying to get members to do a DNA test back to wehn surnames begin and to connect up to individual familiy lines.  

I have been wondering back in the 1300's was there some sort of law when naming your family.  

No.

It was quite common for peole to have the same name and yet no
relationship to one another whatsover.

There are many villages in England called Newbiggin, for instance, so
if you took your name after your home-town (a common way of acquiring
a surname) you would have potentially shared that name with many other
folk - but no relationship.

Or if you took your surname from your job (as many people did), you
would share it with many others (eg Smith, Cook, Farmer) - but no
relationship.

Or you could take your name from your father's Christian name
(Robertson, Johnson, Peters), which presumably was a common thing, so
many other people took the same name - but no relationship.

Alternatively, you might be name for a physical attribute (Black,
Long, Short), which many others might share - but no relationship.

Having the same or a similar surname is no guarantee of a blood link.

Kind regards, Michael

[Nathaniel Taylor]

In article <[email protected]>,
"Edie" <[email protected]> wrote:

Hi,

the PLACE lise I am on are just now trying to get members to do a DNA test
back to wehn surnames begin and to connect up to individual familiy lines.

I have been wondering back in the 1300's was there some sort of law when
naming your family. IE It must have been difficult when two or more men
decided to name themselves PLACE when they were no relation whtever with
another. Back then would there have been some sort of law to prevent too
many of the same name because of mix ups. Would ther have been something
similar to the Deed Poll one needs to pay for to become a certain anme .
Would there have only been allowed the one man say call himself PLACE snd
that was soley his family name , or was ther no control over names at all.
Did one have to register by law their surname and was there only so many who
could name themselves any one name. I may not be making sense, but hope
someone can help me on this one.

In premodern times there was no control over names at all, indeed until
only the most recent modern times. I do not know when required
procedures for changing one's name came into force, but I would guess
only the 19th century in Britain (Deed Poll process) and probably the
same in the US.

Similarly in premodern times there were no formal process by which
surnames were chosen or registered, and they first appear (from our
perspective, looking for them in documents) haphazardly. Furthermore
when surnames were still new in the records (as was still the case in
1300, for non-nobles) they were very often ad-hoc choices by scribes or
informants for describing a particular person, and a person given a
particular 'surname' in one record might not necessarily have considered
it part of his name; and he might have appeared in other records with
other 'surnames'.

Finally, about the surname 'Place': Reaney & Wilson (Oxford Dictionary
of English Surnames, 3d ed. revised) suggest that it may have various
derivations, either local-scale toponyms derived from ME 'place' (the
market-place), or from OFr 'pleix or plais' (an enclosed coppice); or
perhaps an occupational name from a seller of plaice or fish generally.
As with all occupational names or local-scale terrain-based names, one
should presume that later users of the name as a hereditary surname
might derive from scattered, unrelated, progenitors.

Extensive DNA testing will likely confirm the multiple-progenitor model,
but should also show kinship of individual holders of the surname who
had not previously known they were related.

Nat Taylor
a genealogist's sketchbook:
http://www.nltaylor.net/sketchbook/

[Denis Beauregard]

Le Sat, 23 Feb 2008 15:50:51 +1100, "Edie" <[email protected]>
écrivait dans soc.genealogy.medieval:

Hi,

the PLACE lise I am on are just now trying to get members to do a DNA test back to wehn surnames begin and to connect up to individual familiy lines.

I have been wondering back in the 1300's was there some sort of law when naming your family. IE It must have been difficult when two or more men decided to name themselves PLACE when they were no relation whtever with another. Back then would there have been some sort of law to prevent too many of the same name because of mix ups. Would ther have been something similar to the Deed Poll one needs to pay for to become a certain anme . Would there have only been allowed the one man say call himself PLACE snd that was soley his family name , or was ther no control over names at all. Did one have to register by law their surname and was there only so many who could name themselves any one name. I may not be making sense, but hope someone can help me on this one.

You may try with the following search.

First of all, locate a list of people not part of nobility.
Many nobles were using the name of their domain, so it would
be somewhat biased.

Then, look how the people are named on them.

I did it with lists of bishops in France. While many bishops
were noble, most were not. So you can see that from the 1300s
years, they were using family names while before, they were not.

Also, this will give you a sample of family names depending on the
time period. Where there places, then trades, or both at the
beginnings ? And was it around 1300 that the commoners were using
family names in England like in France ?

I located some references with lists of bishops for French
dioceses. No idea if you can find the same for England. Perhaps,
you may find some other sources and kinds of lists.


Denis

--
0 Denis Beauregard -
/\/ Les Français d'Amérique du Nord - http://www.francogene.com/genealogie--quebec/
|\ French in North America before 1722 - http://www.francogene.com/quebec--genealogy/
/ | Maintenant sur cédérom, début à 1770 (Version 2008)
oo oo Now on CD-ROM, beginnings to 1770 (2008 Release)

[Renia]

Edie wrote:

Hi,

the PLACE lise I am on are just now trying to get members to do a DNA test back to wehn surnames begin and to connect up to individual familiy lines.

I have been wondering back in the 1300's was there some sort of law when naming your family. IE It must have been difficult when two or more men decided to name themselves PLACE when they were no relation whtever with another. Back then would there have been some sort of law to prevent too many of the same name because of mix ups. Would ther have been something similar to the Deed Poll one needs to pay for to become a certain anme . Would there have only been allowed the one man say call himself PLACE snd that was soley his family name , or was ther no control over names at all. Did one have to register by law their surname and was there only so many who could name themselves any one name. I may not be making sense, but hope someone can help me on this one.

Thankyou
Edie

Others have explained this but I would also like to add that people
could have more than one "surname".

Imagine a tall, red-haired baker called John, son of Thomas, and he
lived in Kirby, where several other Johns lived.

Some might refer to our John as John the Long, or John the Redhead,
others might called him John the Baker, yet others might called him John
Thomson. One of those names might stick, and he becomes John Baker. Or
he goes to the next village, called Newby, to appear at the local court,
because his pigs have strayed into their village. In Newby, he might be
known as John of Kirby. Perhaps he even moved to Newby to work, and the
name John of Kirby might stick and become his surname.

My husband is called Peter as is one of our best friends. Their friends
refer to them as Pierre le Grand, and Pedro le Petit, just to
differentiate them. Le Grand and Le Petit are not their surnames of
course, it's just what his friends call them. When I wanted to have my
dining chairs repaired and re-upholstered, I discussed all this with
Mick the Upholsterer and Mick the Chippie, who both worked at the same
place. Again, not their surnames, but this illustrates how we identify
people even today, regardless of their surnames.

[Gjest]

On Feb 23, 5:54 pm, Renia <[email protected]> wrote:

Edie wrote:
Hi,

the PLACE lise I am on are just now trying to get members to do a DNA test back to wehn surnames begin and to connect up to individual familiy lines..  

I have been wondering back in the 1300's was there some sort of law when naming your family.  IE It must have been difficult when two or more men decided to name themselves PLACE when they were no relation whtever with  another.  Back then would there have been some sort of law to prevent too many of the same name because of mix ups.  Would ther have been something similar to the Deed Poll one needs to pay for to become a certain anme . Would there have only been allowed the one man say call himself PLACE snd that was soley his family name , or was ther no control over names at all.  Did one have to register by law their surname and was there only so many who could name themselves any one name.  I may not be making sense, but hope someone can help me on this one.  

Thankyou
Edie

Others have explained this but I would also like to add that people
could have more than one "surname".

Imagine a tall, red-haired baker called John, son of Thomas, and he
lived in Kirby, where several other Johns lived.

Some might refer to our John as John the Long, or John the Redhead,
others might called him John the Baker, yet others might called him John
Thomson. One of those names might stick, and he becomes John Baker. Or
he goes to the next village, called Newby, to appear at the local court,
because his pigs have strayed into their village. In Newby, he might be
known as John of Kirby. Perhaps he even moved to Newby to work, and the
name John of Kirby might stick and become his surname.

My husband is called Peter as is one of our best friends. Their friends
refer to them as Pierre le Grand, and Pedro le Petit, just to
differentiate them. Le Grand and Le Petit are not their surnames of
course, it's just what his friends call them. When I wanted to have my
dining chairs repaired and re-upholstered, I discussed all this with
Mick the Upholsterer and Mick the Chippie, who both worked at the same
place. Again, not their surnames, but this illustrates how we identify
people even today, regardless of their surnames.

He might even be "Tom's Red John Baker of Kirby"....

[Ian Goddard]

Edie wrote:

Hi,

the PLACE lise I am on are just now trying to get members to do a DNA test back to wehn surnames begin and to connect up to individual familiy lines.

I have been wondering back in the 1300's was there some sort of law when naming your family. IE It must have been difficult when two or more men decided to name themselves PLACE when they were no relation whtever with another. Back then would there have been some sort of law to prevent too many of the same name because of mix ups. Would ther have been something similar to the Deed Poll one needs to pay for to become a certain anme . Would there have only been allowed the one man say call himself PLACE snd that was soley his family name , or was ther no control over names at all. Did one have to register by law their surname and was there only so many who could name themselves any one name. I may not be making sense, but hope someone can help me on this one.

Thankyou
Edie

You can get a very informative glimpse of how surnames came into use if
you look at a body of documents for a given are. One such is the
Bradfer-Lawrence (ex-Millar) collection of documents from the Snaith
area. Search A2A for millar, Location of Archives = Yorkshire
Archaological Society (note the spelling of millar with an "a"!).

You will find, for instance, that whilst a great many C14th individuals
were being described by their occupation (e.g. Thomas cleark of Snaith)
or parentage (e.g. John, son of Thomas Clerk of Snaith) the Prest
family, despite being villeins, bought and sold with their family and
chattels, had acquired their surname in the C13th.

You can also see an example of the instability of epithets in a pair of
documents dating to 26 Apr 1316 and both apparently made out by Adam the
clerk. One document includes the witness Edmund the tanner and the
other Edmund the barker but it seems likely that these names referred to
the same individual - they had the same position in the list - and the
epithets describe the same occupation - a tanner uses oak bark.

--
Ian

Hotmail is for spammers. Real mail address is igoddard
at nildram co uk