Surnames as a Science

CHAPTER I.

THE ANTIQUITY AND THE UNSUSPECTED DIGNITY OF SOME OF OUR COMMON NAMES.

As some things that seem common, and even ignoble, to the naked eye, lose their meanness under the revelations of the microscope, so, many of our surnames that seem common and even vulgar at first sight, will be found, when their origin is adequately investigated, to be of high antiquity, and of ...