Category: surnames

Calf, Cogar and Creeper

Here are three less common surnames, this time from nicknames or occupations. Calf was supposedly a nickname in English for a calf-like person (skittish maybe?), or perhaps for someone whose job was tending calves. Mary Calffe was buried at Bodmin in 1563 and the name was present from that point on in the Bodmin-Fowey district, … Continue reading Calf, Cogar and Creeper →

Aunger, Betties and Cattran

Here are three more family names that were largely confined to Cornwall in the 1881 census. These three have their origins in first names. Aunger is supposedly from a Norman-French first name Aunger or Anger. It was found in Cornwall at an early period, appearing close to the border with Devon in the 1530s and … Continue reading Aunger, Betties and Cattran →

From Tripcony to Tripp

The other day a correspondent kindly supplied me with an intriguing hypothesis. The surname Tripp emerged in Cornwall very late, by my reckoning no earlier than the first half of the nineteenth century. Some, perhaps most, of those Tripps had changed their name from Tripcony. That name probably had its origin in the place now … Continue reading From Tripcony to Tripp →

Addicoat, Angear and Beskeen

I had to make a hard decision when collating the entries for my The Surnames of Cornwall. Which names to include, which to leave out? Previous works on the subject had relied on the subjective choice of the author. Partly in order to justify my method to the disappointed, I decided to be more objective. … Continue reading Addicoat, Angear and Beskeen →