4. Rowe

The surname dictionaries insist that Rowe originated in a name for someone living by a hedgerow or in a row of houses. Given its pre-eminent place in the rollcall of Cornish surnames and the personal names origin of the others in this list, that explanation seems a bit lacking. Even if some with the byname Row got it in the early medieval period from their residence in a row it’s far more likely most gained the surname from a popular first name.

That first name was Raw, a short form of Ralph or Rowland. In the 15^th century there were several examples recorded of men whose surname was spelt both Raw and Row and in the 16^th century the spelling Raw/Rawe was more than five times more common in Cornwall than Rowe, which was confined chiefly to the east. Yet by 1641 Rowe was three times more common than Rawe and a century later was far outnumbering Rawe, as the latter name suffered a steep decline in its numbers.

Rawe and Rowe were names found across the land in the 16^th and 17^th centuries. That was still the case in later centuries, although by then there was a marked concentration on the mining districts and particularly West Penwith and Camborne.