Chapter XVI: Note on the Interpretation of Cornish Names

One of the practical interests in the study of Cornish is in the interpretation of place-names. As quite ninety per cent. of the place-names of Cornwall are Celtic, and as a very large proportion of these are descriptive names, usually in a fairly uncorrupted state, this gives much opportunity of research. There are, however, certain considerations, grammatical and topographical, which should be kept carefully in mind in attempting to discover the meanings of these names, and it is a disregard of these considerations that has made most of the published works on the subject so singularly valueless. The great majority of Cornish names are composed of epithets suffixed to certain nouns, such as _tre_, _trev_, a town; _pol_, a pool; _pen_ or _pedn_, head or top; _rôs_, often written _rose_, a heath; _car_, a fort or camp; _lan_, an enclosure, or a church; _eglos_, a church; _bal_, a mine; _whêl_ or _wheal_, a work (_i.e._ a mine); _chy_, _ty_, a house; _park_, a field; _forth_, a creek or harbour; _nans_, a valley; _carn_, a cairn or heap of rocks; _hal_, a moor; _gûn_, _goon_, a down; _gwêl_, _gweal_, a field; _bod_, _bos_, _be_, a dwelling; _les_, a court, a palace; _carrack_, a rock; _creeg_, a tumulus; _crows_, a cross; _din_, _dun_, a hill-fort; _fenton_ or _venton_, a spring; _kelly_, _killy_, a grove; _cos_, _coose_, a wood; _mên_, a stone; _tol_, a hole; _triga_, _trigva_, a dwelling-place; _melan_, _mellan_, _vellan_, a mill; _zawn_, _zawns_, a cove; _bron_, _bryn_, a hill; _bar_, _bor_, _bur_, a summit; _tor_, a hill. These are the commonest of the nouns. The epithets may be:—

1. Adjectives, signifying size, colour, position, etc., e.g. _mêr_,
_mear_, _vcar_, great; _bîan_, _bean_, _vean_, little; _glas_, blue;
_dew_, black; _gwin_, _gwidu_, _widn_, white; _gwartha_, _wartha_,
_gwarra_, upper; _gollas_, _gullas_, _wollas_, lower, etc., in
agreement with the noun.

2. Other nouns in the appositional genitive.

3. Proper names.

4. Adjectives or nouns preceded by the article _an_, the, or by a
preposition such as _war_, on.

The following points should be considered:—

1. The gender of the noun. Of the nouns mentioned above, _tre_, _ros_, _car_, _lan_, _whêl_, _hal_, _goon_, _carrack_, _crows_, _fenton_, _kelly_, _trigva_, _mellan_, _bron_, _tor_, are feminine, so that the initial of the adjective epithet is changed to the second state. This may often, more or less, determine whether the epithet is an adjective or a noun in the genitive. Thus, in the name _Tremaine_, we may be sure that the second syllable is not an adjective or it would be _Trevaine_, so the meaning is not, as one would think, “the stone house,” not a very distinguishing epithet in Cornwall, but probably the “house of the stones,” i.e. of some stone circle or other prehistoric remains. Sometimes, however, the initial of an appositional genitive, and sometimes that of an epithet of a masculine noun is irregularly changed in composition.

2. The stress accent of the compound. This is of great importance, especially in determining whether an article or preposition intervenes between the noun and its epithet, and also, in the rare cases in which it occurs, in deciding whether the epithet may not precede the noun. _The stress accent is almost invariably on the epithet_, and it is astonishing to see how even in East Cornwall, where the language has been dead for three centuries, this accentuation is still preserved. If the epithet suffix is a monosyllable, the accent of the compounded word is on the last syllable; if not, the accent is usually on the last but one, but the intervening article or preposition is always a proclitic, and is disregarded as to accent. The same sort of thing happens in English. Thus, even if it were the custom to write _Stratfordonavon_ all in one word, we should know by the accent that it meant _Stratford-on-Avon_; but one, say some German philologist, who had never heard it pronounced, and knew nothing of British topography and the distribution of surnames, might conjecture that it was _Stratfor Dónavon_, might compare it with _Lydiard Tregoze_, _Stoke Dabernon_, _Sutton Valence_, or _Compton Wyniates_, and might build thereon a beautiful theory of an Irish settlement in Warwickshire. Things every whit as absurd as this have been done with Cornish names.

3. The position and general features of the place. Thus when we find that a rather important town is situated at the innermost point of a bay called in Cornish (cf. Boson’s Pilchard Song) _Zans Garrak Loos en Kûz_, we may doubt whether its name signifies “the holy head or headland,” and not “the head of the bay.” In this case there is a slight complication, because there is actually something of a headland about the Battery Rocks, and the town arms are St. John Baptist’s head in a charger; but when we find that _Tremaine_ is some ten miles, as the crow flies, from the nearest point of the coast, we may be quite justified in doubting whether Pryce is right in calling it “the town on shore or sea coast.”

The following specimens of names about whose meaning there can be no doubt, will serve as examples of the construction of Cornish place-names:—

1. Epithet following noun.

_a_. Masculine. _Porthmear_ (in Zennor), the great porth or creek.
(Murray’s Handbook says that it means the “sea-port,” but Murray’s
interpretations are intricately and ingeniously wrong-headed).

_b_. Feminine. _Trevean_, the little town. _Tre_ signifies _town_ in
the modern Cornish and old English sense, a farmhouse with its
out-buildings. It is the commonest of these generic prefixes. In
Brittany, though it is occasionally found, its place is usually taken
by _Ker_ (Cornish _Car_, Welsh _Caer_), probably the Latin _castrum_, a
fortified town or camp, a difference which has its historical
significance.

2. Epithet preceding noun.

_Hendrea_, the old town (in Sancreed). Note that this is _Héndrea_,
not _Hendréa_. Note also the change of initial in _tre_.

3. Intervening particles.

_a_. The definite article. _Crows-an-wra_, the witch’s cross.
(Murray says that it means “the wayside cross,” but _gwragh_, _gwrah_,
_gwra_, Breton _gwrac’h_, certainly means a hag or witch, and the
change of initial after the article shows that the noun is feminine.)
_Chy-an-dowr_, the house of the water.

_b_. Preposition. _Tywardreath_, the house on the sands;
_Tywarnhaile_ (=_Ty war an hayle_), the house on the tidal river. Note
that the syllable _war_ in these words is unaccented. In _Trewartha_,
the upper house, the accent is on _war_, so that even if we were not
accustomed to the epithet _wartha_ we should know that _war_ is here
not a preposition.

4. Appositional genitive without article.

_Chytan_, the house of fire; _Chypons_, the bridge house; _Pentreath_,
the head of the sands; _Portreath_ (=_Porth-treath_), the creek of the
sands.

_Nancemelling_ (=_Nans-mellan_), the valley of the mill.

5. Proper names as appositional genitives:—

_Trejago_, the house of Jago (or James).

_Chykembra_, the Welshman’s house.

_Gûn-an-Guidal_ (or _Anguidal Downs_), the down of the Irishman.

In West Cornwall, especially in Penwith, where the spoken language lingered latest, there is a greater tendency to the use of the article _an_ than in the more eastern part of the Duchy. Sometimes the article is prefixed to the noun itself. Thus, _Andrewartha_ (=_an dre wartha_), the upper town, in Gwithian, now called _Upton_, but inhabited by a family of the older name; _Angarrack_, the rock, between Hayle and Gwinear Road; _Angove_, the smith, and _Angwin_, the white, family names; _Angrouse_, the cross, in Mullion; _Angear_, the castle; _Annear_ or _Ennor_, the earth; _Angilley_ or _Anguilly_, the grove. {196}

Generally when the article comes between the generic noun and some other word the latter is a noun also, an appositional genitive, but occasionally it is an adjective, as in _Ponsanooth_ (in Perran Arworthal and Gluvias), which is probably _Pons-an-nowedh_, the new bridge. The generic prefix _Pleu_ or _Plou_, parish, so common in Brittany, is altogether unknown in Cornish place-names of to-day, unless, as some hold, _Bleu Bridge_ in Madron means “the parish bridge,” and is a partial translation of _Pons-an-bleu_, but the word is common enough in Cornish, and the names of parishes called after saints frequently began in Cornish writings with _Pleu_ (_plu_, _plui_)—_Pleu East_, St. Just; _Pleu Paul_, St. Paul; _Pleu Vudhick_, St. Budock. Though the word occurs in the expression _tîz pleu_, people of [his] parish, in the tale of _John of Chy-an-Hur_, the three parishes mentioned there, St. Levan, St. Hillary, and Buryan, are called by their ordinary English names. The prefix _lan_, originally an enclosure (cf. the English _lawn_), but later used to signify a church with its churchyard, is still frequently found, with occasional variants of _la_, _lam_, and _land_, but it is nothing like so frequent as the Welsh equivalent _llan_. In earlier days it was more common in Cornwall than it is now, and a number of parishes which now have the prefix “Saint” appear in the Domesday Survey with _Lan_.

* * * * *

The family names of Cornwall, omitting those of the few great Norman houses, Granvilles, Bevilles, Fortescues, Bassets, St. Aubyns, Glanvilles, etc., which do not concern us at present, fall into at least four classes.

1. Names derived from places.

“By Tre, Pol, and Pen,
Ye shall know Cornishmen.”

or as Camden more correctly expands it at the expense of metre:—

“By Tre, Ros, Pol, Lan, Car, and Pen,
Ye shall know the most Cornishmen.”

And he might have added many more prefixes. It is probable that many of these names originated in the possession of the estates of the same names.

Of this class are such names as _Trelawny_, _Rosevear_, _Polwhele_, _Lanyon_, _Carlyon_, and _Penrose_. To the ordinary Saxon they sound highly aristocratic, and are introduced into modern “up country” novels in a way that is often amusing to a Cornishman, and no doubt many of them do represent the names of families of past or present gentility, for in Cornwall, as in the Scottish Highlands, armigerous gentry were and are very thick on the ground, and a very large number of Cornishmen of every class and occupation might write themselves down “gentlemen” in the strict heraldic sense if they only knew it. But some names of this class are derived from very small landed possessions, and some probably, as similar names in England, from mere residence, not possession.

2. Patronymics. These are the equivalents of the English names ending in _son_ or _s_, of the Welsh names beginning with _ap_ (=_mab_, son), and the Irish and Scottish beginning with _mac_ or _O’_. They fall into five classes.

_a_. The Christian name used as a surname without alteration, as
_Harry_, _Peter_, _John_, _Rawle_, _Rawe_ or _Rowe_ (for _Ralph_ or
_Raoul_), _Gilbart_ and _Gilbert_, _Thomas_ or _Thom_, _Davy_,
_Bennet_, _Harvey_, _Tangye_, etc.

_b_. The diminutive of the Christian name, as _Jenkin_, _Hodgkin_,
_Rawlin_, _Tonkin_, _Eddyvean_ (=Little Eddy), _Hockin_ (—_Hawkin_,
i.e. _Harrykin_), etc.

_c_. The Christian name or its diminutive in its English possessive
form, as _Peters_, _Johns_, _Rogers_, _Jenkins_, _Rawlings_, _Roberts_,
etc.

_d_. Patronymics formed as in English, German, Dutch, and the
Scandinavian languages by adding _son_, as _Johnson_, _Jackson_,
_Wilson_, etc. When these occur in Cornwall they are probably often of
English origin.

_e_. Patronymics formed with the prefix _ap_ (for _mab_, son),
apocopated (as in the Welsh names _Probert_, _Pritchard_, _Price_,
_Bevan_, _Bowen_) to a _p_ or _b_. It is possible that to this class
may belong _Prowse_, _Prawle_ (_Ap Rowse_, _Ap Rawle_), _Bown_ (_Ap
Owen_?), _Budge_ (_Ap Hodge_?), _Pezzack_ (_Ap Isaac_).

The Christian names from which patronymics are formed are not as a rule very peculiar. There are the usual names of the well-known saints, _Peter_, _Paul_, _Mitchell_ (_Michael_), _John_, _James_ (or in its Cornish form, _Jago_), _Thomas_, _Matthew_, _Francis_, _Dunstan_, _Bennet_, _Andrew_, _Martin_, and the rest, the common general Christian names, _Harry_, _William_, _Robert_, _Roger_, etc., and some less common ones, such as _Julyan_, _Vivian_, _Nicholas_ (_Nicol_, _Nicholl_, etc.), _Colin_, _Jeffry_, _Jasper_, _Gilbert_, etc., and names of Cornish saints, _Keverne_, _Key_, _Gluyas_, _Ustick_ (probably adjectival form from _Just_). Besides these there are a few from old British, or of Breton or Norman introduction, _Harvey_ (_Hervé_), _Dennis_, _Rawle_, _and Rawlin_ (_Raoul_, _Raoulin_, _Rivallen_), _Tangye_ (_Tanguy_, a quite common name in Brittany, from St. Tanguy, one of the entourage of St. Pol of Leon), _Arthur_, _David_ or _Davy_ (as representing the Welsh saint, not the King of Israel), _Sampson_ (representing the Bishop of Dol, not the Israelite hero), _Jewell_ (Breton _Judicael_ or _Juhel_). Some names take a variety of forms. Thus _Clement_ is found as _Clemens_, _Clemments_, _Clements_, _Clemo_ or _Clemmow_, _Climo_, _Climance_, etc., _Ralph_ (_Radulphus_, _Rudolph_, _Randolph_, _Rollo_) is found as _Ralph_, _Rapson_, _Rawe_, _Rawle_, _Rawlin_, _Rawling_, _Rawlings_, _Rabling_, _Randall_, _Rowe_, _Rowling_, _Rowse_, etc. There are also certain names which have a resemblance to Spanish names, _Pascoe_, _Varcoe_, _Jago_, _Crago_, _Manuel_, etc., but no theory of Spanish influence is necessarily to be built upon them, as they are otherwise explainable. As the Cornish had got beyond the matriarchal stage of culture before historic times, we do not find family names derived from names of women, but no chapter on Cornish nomenclature can omit that very remarkable and peculiarly Cornish name _Jennifer_, which is beyond any doubt a local form of the name of Guenivere, the wife of Arthur. A more Frenchified form is still found in Brittany, and the Cornish form goes back to time immemorial. At one time the name of an equally celebrated Queen of Cornwall was used as a Cornish Christian name, for _Ysolt_ de Cardinham possessed the advowson of the church of Colan in the thirteenth century, but except as a modern revival, of which the present writer knows only one case connected with Cornwall, this name is no longer found. Another not infrequent Christian name is _Hannibal_, from which possibly may come the surnames _Hambly_, _Hamley_, and _Hamblyn_. The name is too old in Cornwall to have originated in any theory about the Phœnicians and the tin trade of the Cassiterides, for it is found in times when no one troubled himself about either, but its origin is decidedly a puzzle.

3. Names derived from trades or occupations. Some of these are only English, _Smith_, _Wright_, _Carpenter_, _Brewer_, _Paynter_, etc., but others are real Cornish, as _Marrack_, knight; _Angove_, the smith; _Drew_, druid, magician (and perhaps _An-drew_, the druid, when it is not merely a patronymic); _Tyacke_, farmer; _Sayer_ and _Sara_, possibly _Saer_, carpenter; _Hellyar_, hunter; _Cauntor_ (Lat. _Cantor_), singer.

4. Nicknames or names derived from personal peculiarities, such as _Black_, _White_, _Brown_, _Grey_, _Green_, which are mostly found in English, though one finds _Angwin_, the white, and _Winn_, white; _Glass_ and _Glaze_, blue; _Couch_, red; _Floyd_ (cf. Welsh _Lloyd_), grey; _Glubb_, moist, wet; _Coath_, _Coad_, and its English _Olde_ or _Ould_; _Baragwaneth_, wheat-bread, etc. Also names derived from names of animals, _Bullock_, _Cock_, _Fox_, or its Cornish _Lewarne_ (unless that is _Le-warne_, the place of alders), _Mutton_ (though this may be a place-name also), etc. One does not see why a man should have been called _Curnow_, the Cornishman, in a country in which such an epithet could not have been very distinguishing, but that name is not at all uncommon, nor is _Andain_ or _Endean_, the man, which is still less distinguishing.

This is only a slight sketch of a considerable range of investigation, but the subject would require a book to itself, so that it is impossible here to do more than indicate the direction in which students of Cornish nomenclature should work. But in the investigation of place-names in any language one must always allow for corruption and alteration in the course of centuries, and in a Celtic country for the Celticising of names of non-Celtic derivation. Thus the well-known Welsh name _Bettws_ is probably the old English bede-house (prayer-house), _Gattws_, less common, is gatehouse. The terminations _aig_, _sgor_, _bhal_, _dail_, _ort_, so common in the Hebrides and West Highlands, are Gaelic forms of the Norse _vik_, _skjœr_, _val_, _dal_, _fjord_, and many names in those parts are altogether Norse, spelt Gaelic fashion, and have no meaning whatever in Gaelic. Probably the Cornish place-name _Bereppa_, _Barrepper_, _Brepper_, _Borripper_, of which instances occur in Gunwalloe, Penponds, Mawnan, and elsewhere, is only the French _Beau-Repaire_, and there are probably many other names of French derivation. Dr. Bannister’s Glossary of Cornish Names is of so eminently uncritical a character as to be of little use. Though he had a wide knowledge of separate Cornish words, he was no philologist, and did not seem to understand how to put his words together. Had he only given the situation of the places—the name of the parish would have been something towards it—he would have left a basis for future work. As it is, the whole work needs to be done over again. Of course one need hardly say that out of such a large collection of names a considerable number of the derivations are quite correctly stated, but those are mostly the easy and obvious ones, and even easy ones are often wrong, and it was quite useless to encumber the glossary with the hopeless derivations of eighteenth-century writers. But the interpretation of place-names is not so simple as it looks, and it is easier to criticise other people’s derivations than to find better ones, so that one may admire Dr. Bannister’s industry while one deprecates the recklessness of many of his conclusions.