What’s in a Surname, by David McKie – review

In South Korea, some 20 million people share just five surnames. Every one of Denmark’s top 20 surnames ends in ‘-sen’, meaning ‘son of’, a pattern that is replicated across Scandinavia. British surnames have never favoured such neatness, and we can be grateful for that. While we may have lost such delightfully chewy names as Crackpot, Crookbones and Sweteinbede, the average city will still provide its Slys, Haythornthwaites, and McGillikuddys.

David McKie’s winding and sensitive study of British surnames is based on his findings in cemeteries, registers and oral accounts across six villages called Broughton, from Hampshire to Furness. It is a structure that allows the author to linger on the fate of particular names and their bearers — those that migrated, those that flourished, or faded with the end of the male line, and those that became the catalyst for bitter feuding and bloodshed.

McKie’s fascination is with the stories of real individuals: the powerful families whose forebears crossed the channel in 1066 — among them the Sinclairs, Nevilles and D’Arcys — as well as those who lived for their names and frequently died for them. Around a third of William’s conquering army were Flemings, a name meaning someone from Flanders and traditionally associated with trade and entrepreneurship. When English merchants began to resent the new competition, the results were dramatic — McKie relates how many of the Flemings who had settled in London were hunted down by mobs and forced to speak such words as ‘bread and cheese’. If their response sounded like ‘brod’ and ‘caisse’ they would be set upon and slaughtered.

In the 17th century, surnames were harnessed to more peaceful, but no less manipulative, ends. Under the influence of the Puritans, the practice arose of baptising children with scriptural or pious phrases annexed to their last name.