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Saturday, December 19, 2020

Understanding Patronymics


A patronym, or patronymic, is a component of a personal name based on the given name of one's father, grandfather (i.e., an avonymic), or an even-earlier male ancestor. A component of a name based on the name of one's mother or a female ancestor is a matronymic. Each is a means of conveying lineage. In such instances, a person is usually referred to by their given name, rather than their patronymic.

Patronymics are still in use, including mandatory use, in many places worldwide, although their use has largely been replaced by or transformed into patronymic surnames. Examples of such transformations include common English surnames such as Johnson (son of John).

In England, names ending with the suffix "son" were often originally patronymic. In addition, the archaic French (more specifically, Norman) prefix fitz (cognate with the modern French fils, meaning "son"), appears in England's aristocratic family lines dating from the Norman Conquest, and also among the Anglo-Irish. Thus there are names such as Fitzgerald and Fitzhugh. Of particular interest is the name "Fitzroy", meaning "son of king", which was used by illegitimate royal children who were acknowledged as such by their fathers.

In Dutch, patronymics were often used in place of family names or as middle names. Patronymics were composed of the father's name plus an ending -zoon for sons, -dochter for daughters. For instance, Abel Janszoon Tasman is "Abel son of Jan Tasman", and Kenau Simonsdochter Hasselaer: "Kenau, daughter of Simon Hasselaer". In written form, these endings were often abbreviated as -sz. and -dr. respectively e.g. Jeroen Cornelisz. "Jeroen son of Cornelis", or Dirck Jacobsz

The endings -s, -se and -sen were also commonly used for sons and often for daughters too. In the northern provinces, -s, as genitive case, was almost universally used for both sons and daughters. Patronymics were common in the Dutch United Provinces until the French invasion in 1795 and subsequent annexation in 1810. As the Netherlands were now a province of France, a registry of births, deaths and marriages was established in 1811, whereupon emperor Napoleon forced the Dutch to register and adopt a distinct surname.[6] Often, they simply made the patronymics the new family names, and modern Dutch patronymic-based surnames such as Jansen, Pietersen and Willemsen abound. Others chose their profession or habitat as family names: Bakker (baker), Slachter (butcher), van Dijk (of dike) etc.

When the first census of 1671 of the residents of Delaware, their existed naming problems that had existed as early as 1638-1682 - is the fact that few of the Swedes, Finns and Dutch actually had surnames. Most of them stayed with the patronymic naming system which prevailed in their native countries. Thus, Eskil Larsson's son Bärtil was known as Bärtil Eskilsson and the latter’s son Anders, was known as Bärtilsson, which became modified to Andrew Bartleson in the hands of the English scribes.

Nicknames were also common. Thus, Gerrit Jansen, the Dutch blacksmith at New Castle, was also known as  Gerrit de Smith (his occupation) and Gerrit van  Beck (his place of origin). In the patronymic tradition, however, his sons were known as Gerritsen (later Garretson.

Similarly, among the Swedes, Finns and Dutch, women kept their maiden names throughout their life. Thus, the Dutch woman Sarah Neering was twice married. She was still called Sarah Neering in the will of her second husband, Foppe Jansen Outhout. A Swedish orphan named Christina Ollesdotter was known by that name throughout her life, surviving two husbands, the Dutch soldier Walraven Jansen de Vos and the Swedish barber-surgeon Timen Stiddem.

Under the influence of English custom, most of the Swedes, Finns and Dutch had adopted surnames by the end of thr 17th century. Sometimes the patronymic formed the basis for the surname (e.g. Mårtensson to Morton, Gustafsson to Justice, Jochimsson to Yocum). Sometimes the surname was invented, such as Långåker, meaning “long field” in Swedish, which became Anglicized to Longacre.
(excerpt Pg viii, 1671 Census of the Delaware, Peter Stebbins Craig)
 (photo: wikivisually)