At 3:11:19 PM on Friday, November 11, 2005, Patrick Ryan
wrote:
> From: "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...>
>> At 1:36:00 AM on Thursday, November 10, 2005, Patrick
>> Ryan wrote:
>>> Ryan, by the way, means 'king'.
>> Hereditary surnames don't have meanings;
> Of course surnames have meanings.
No, they do not. Literally descriptive bynames of the kind
used in the Middle Ages have meanings. Most modern
hereditary surnames were once bynames that had descriptive
meaning. But modern hereditary surnames do not have
meanings in the sense in which you used the word above; the
have etymologies.
I agree completely with Cecily Clark, 'Onomastics', in The
Cambridge History of the English Language, vol. 1:
Before becoming truly a 'name', a descriptive formation
must, however, be divorced from its etymological meaning
in such a way that the sound-sequence, no matter how
complex its structure or plain its surface-meaning,
becomes a simple pointer; 'one might claim that
unintelligible names fulful their role more directly'
(Gardiner 1940; Nicolaisen, in Gelling et al. 1970: 14).
<Bath>, as a place-name, coincides in form with the common
noun, and awareness survives of the Roman baths that it
commemorates; but, for all that, the name's everyday
'meaning' is independent of etymology. Such independence
is clearer still with names which, like <London>, have,
since records began, apparently been opaque to their users
(Rivet and Smith 1979: 396-8). So, likewise with personal
names: <Philip> means 'horse-lover', and as a Christian
name it recalls an Apostle; but few present-day choosers
and bearers of it seem much concerned either with
etymology or -- at all events in present-day England --
with biblical associations.
More concisely, Cecily Clark, 'Onomastics', in The Cambridge
History of the English Language, vol. 2:
Names, whether of places or of people, have by definition
a distinctive standing vis-à-vis the language at large.
Although ultimately derived from elements of common
vocabulary (not necessarily that of the language they
currently grace), they have become emptied of their
original etymological denotation; and this is true even
for those whose form still coincides with that of the
related lexical items: no-one expects to find cattle
wading across the river at Oxford and, should a Mr Butcher
actually be in the meat trade, the coincidence almmost
excites mirth.
See also the well-known evolution of Germanic dithematic
names from meaningful compounds to largely combinatorial
objects.
> Just a 'little middle-class king'.
> I would like to poll the list on that question.
> Another of my ancestors is surnamed <Wolf>. I suppose that
> does not mean 'wolf' but only has an etymology.
If it was an inherited surname at that time, it meant only
that that ancestor belonged to a family surnamed <Wolf>. If
it was an English descriptive byname, the odds are that at
that time it was indeed a nickname meaning 'wolf' (Reaney &
Wilson, A Dictionary of English Surnames, s.n. <Wolf>). If
it was a German descriptive byname, at least three sources
are possible: it could have been a nickname meaning 'wolf',
it could have been a house-name, or it could have been
patronymic, from one of the forenames in <Wolf->, especially
<Wolfgang> (Brechenmacher, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der
deutschen Familiennamen, s.n. <Wolf>).
> Get real.
> Maybe <Patrick> does not mean 'noble' either?
<Patrick> denotes any of the various people who bear the
name: that is its only meaning as a name. Etymologically
speaking it derives from Latin <Patricius>, a late cognomen
(and, surprisingly, gentilicium) which is indeed from the
appellative <patricius>.
>> what you're talking about is the etymology.
> It is _not_ an English surname. It is an Irish surname.
The surname <Ryan> _in_that_form_ is most certainly English,
just as <Szulc> is Polish, albeit derived from German
<Schulz>. Specifically, it is the result of Englishing any
of several Irish surnames, as I noted last time:
>> The English surname <Ryan> can in fact represent any of
>> several Irish surnames, including <Ó Riagháin>, <Ó
>> Riain>, <Ó Maoil Riain>, <Ó Ruaidhín>, and <Ó Ruadháin>,
>> though the first two are, I believe, much the most common
>> sources. <Ó Riain> is from earlier <ua Ríáin> 'male
>> descendant of Ríán'; to the extent that <Ryan> has a
>> meaning, that's it (for those instances that are
>> Englished from <Ó Riain>). <Ríán> itself is simply a
>> masculine idionym. It's clearly a diminutive in <-án>,
>> most likely of <rí> 'king', though the name <Rígán> is
>> the expected diminutive.
Brian