English family names

Abstract

The English of the British Isles has already been put on the map in a number of national and regional atlases. In contrast, atlases of English family names are rather few in number and there are only a very limited number of distributional maps, often without any historical dimension. A team working at my Chair of English Linguistics and Medieval Studies at the University of Bamberg have remedied this situation. Since 2004, a number of publications have appeared, or will appear shortly, that will ultimately lead to a rather comprehensive atlas of English family names. These are: Viereck 2004 (reprinted in an abridged version in 2005a), 2005b, 2005c, 2006a, 2006b, 2006c, 2007/2008, 2008a, 2008b and Barker et al. 2007. English surnames, of course, have come down to us in such enormous numbers that only a selection of them can be dealt with. This contribution is the final paper in the series. It deals with one example each of the main categories mentioned below, namely a – female – personal name, a local surname, a nickname and an occupational surname. Some comments on further research desiderata are made at the end of the paper.