Susie Dent

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

issue 21 September 2013

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.

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