Product Description

Did you know that Batts, may have had stout ancestors? That Dennes could be descended from swineherds? That Herons might come from thin men with long legs? How much do you know about the origin of your own surname? This fascinating dictionary covers the origin and meaning of over 16,000 surnames, giving detailed information on early name-forms and how names have changed over the centuries. Alternative forms of names are cross-referenced to make it easy to find variants. Popular names such as Brown, Clark and Smith are all covered, alongside rarer names from Clapper to Cutterbuck, Stocking to Twitchen. An authoritative introduction sets in context the popular topic of name-studies, and guides the reader through the history of English surnames. The dictionary also includes an appendix in which the distinguished family historian, Professor David Hey (author of the Oxford Companion to Local and Family History) gives advice on how to locate the home of a family name. He explains, with examples, how to discover the current distribution of a name in the UK, and how to trace its origins. Quirky and interesting, informative and accessible, this is an excellent guide for anyone with an interest in English family names.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #672322 in Books
• Published on: 2005-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 520 pages

About the Author
P. H. Reaney is the author of The Origin of English Surnames (RKP, 1980). R. M. Wilson is Professor Emeritus of English Language at Sheffield University.

Customer Reviews

The Oxford Dictionary of Minimal Information?
Yes, this was quite disappointing. No serious etymology, no deep origins, no accounting for names that appear to be variants of English surnames yet are not included, i.e., there is a Houston but no Huston. Really? What a narrow net the editors cast! A waste of shelf space.

Another English Chap
After buying this book with great expectations I was very disappointed. Out of curiosity I thought I would check the reviews which may have been left for it. I was astonished to see how highly others had rated it. (They can't all be related to the author or the publisher!). I don't normally feel inclined to criticise other people's work but this book left me feeling very disatisfied. I know it is a dictionary but I wanted more plain language explanation not just a string of technical jargon after each entry.
I found the introduction especially tedious and difficult to make sense of. Apart from the fairly obvious divisions (local, occupational etc.) the rest of it is also very technical and really not readily understood by a layman. Even the explanations of the abbreviations were obtuse. It seemed that some discussion of the source material would have been informative. As it was I was left feeling totally in the dark.
It is clearly a scholarly work and probably useful to academia but I doubt that the average man on the street would get much use out of it. Sorry!

Indispensable if needed for research
Obviously someone who wishes to give a first name to a child is not the most likely person to consult this very learned tome: for those people P. Hanks and F. Hodges's *Dictionary of First Names* (also published by Oxford) is the appropriate book (though David Pickering's *Penguin Dictionary of First Names* is also very good). Obviously, if the first name you have in mind is also a surname, then this reference tool, too, is likely to be useful.

The amount of work that has gone into this volume is daunting, particularly when it comes to the mention of early sources in which names have been found. Some of that material is perhaps more of interest to the specialist than the general user, but in any case it is valuable. The Introduction, on names generally, is extremely informative and interesting.

For myself, I most often need to know what a surname might mean (most of them do have meaning), and I suspect that this is what others, too, frequently want to know. For example, are those many Australians who have the surname *Smyth* in effect carrying the surname *Smith*? Yes, indeed: the *y* is merely a spelling variant, which many welcome because it suggests a name other than *Smith* (though quite a few people called *Smyth* don't themselves know that *Smyth*= *Smith*!).

Does this dictionary reveal what one wants to know? It does, but not always in the handiest way possible. It has an entry *Smye, Smythe*, but not one for *Smyth*: one needs to know something about the early stages of the language to realise that if *Smythe* is an early form of *Smith*, then so is *Smyth* likely to be, and if one then turns to *Smith* one will find *Smyth* there. So not everyone will necessarily immediately discover the material searched for - but most people are likely to do so eventually. All in all , I recommend the book heartily, and use it often. - Joost Daalder, Professor of English, Flinders University (South Australia)