[This is for my children. You can read it as an alternative to taking a sleeping pill]The British are very conscious of their mixed-up origins: Roman, Celtic, AngloSaxon, Viking (and variant Norman French), together with later admixtures of Jews, Huguenot refugees and so on.
Surnames and placenames provide clues as to origin. For example, all place names ending in -ham, -ton, -ing or -ley are likely to be AngloSaxon, those ending in -by or - thorpe, Viking, and all those Roman military camps (in Latin -castra) have left us a plethora of -casters, -cesters and chesters.
Surnames are fun too. The patronymics, where you are "son of. ....", include the ubiquitous -son, as in Johnson; and -s as in Jenkins. But also as a prefix, the Welsh ap- (son) gives us Perry (ap Harry), Powell (ap Howell) and Pugh and Pritchard and so on; the Norman Fitz- (Modern French fils = son) gives Fitzgerald., etc; and, from the Celtic, Mac (Scottish) and Mc (Irish) give us MacDonald and McManus and so on.
So, when my children ask me "Dad, where do we come from?", I know it is a genealogical not a biological question. The All- of our family name is a first name, Allan (or similar). The -s- is a possessive: Allan's. And the -op is a form of the word "hope" from an Old Norse (Viking) word meaning "the upper end of a valley". This -op also occurs in other surnames like Jessop and Blenkinsop.
So, blessed fruit of my loins, there is Viking in our name. And if you want more evidence of our Viking ancestry, consider our height, our auburn hair and our freckles. Mind you, I believe (and sincerely hope) that it is many generations since an Allsop went on a binge of rape, arson and pillage.
5 comments:
Hm, vikings, dear, not pirates!
When I was in college I had a delightful professor of Viking descent.
He told the story once of an elderly maiden aunt of his who did genealogical research. Every year at the family reunion she would share what new information she had discovered. She would also share the visions she had experienced about their wild Viking ancestors. They had a tendency to be a bit violent, but no one said anything. Finally, the year that she told all the children a story about their ancestor raping every nun in a convent, the family told her that, while she was welcome to discuss the research, the visions were too "sacred" to be discussed.
Old scrotes - and scrotesses too - can be a tactless sometimes. It's a good idea to forgive us, though, because, like the Planet Earth***,we are mostly quite harmless.
***Reference to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
You'll enjoy this: http://www.spatial-literacy.org/UCLnames/Surnames.aspx
Katie, what a brilliant website! I urge everyone to have a look at it.
Thanks.
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