A large class of names of joy belonging to the later growth of the Latin tongue may be thrown together; and first those connected with the word jocus, which seems to have arisen from the inarticulate shout of ecstasy that all know, but none can spell, ἰουας (in Greek), and with us joy, the French joie, and Italian gioia.

The original cry is preserved in the Swiss jodel, or shout of the mountaineers, and this indeed seems to be the sound naturally rising from the cries that peal from one hill to another, for here the Eastern meets the Western tongue. The sound at which the walls of Jericho fell, was called the Yobêl; and the fifty years' festival of release, inaugurated with trumpet sounds, was the Yobêl (the jubilee). Jubilo (to call aloud), already a Latin word, also from the sound of the shout and exultation, had been connected with it even before the annum jubileum had come in from the Hebrews.

Giubilare and Giubileo made themselves at home in Italian, while German, either from the Latin or its own resources, took its own word jubel. Giubileo was probably born in the year of a jubilee.

From jocus came Jodocus, an Armorican prince, belonging to a family which migrated from Wales. He refused the sovereignty of Brittany, to live as a hermit in Ponthieu, where he is still remembered as St. Josse, and named at least three villages, perhaps also forming Josselin; but in his native Brittany, Judicael, an old princely name, seems to have been the form of his commemoration. In Domesday Book we find Judicael Venator already a settler in England before the conquest, probably brought by the Confessor. Germany accepted this as a common peasant name, as Jost, or Jobs; Bavaria, as Jobst, or Jodel; Italy, as Giodoco; and the feminine, Jodoca, is not yet extinct in Wales.

Neither is the very similar Jocosa, once not uncommon among English ladies, by whom it was called Joyce. The contractions of this name are, however, almost inextricably confused with those of Justus. Joy stands alone as one of our abstract virtue names.

Another word very nearly related to our own glad, is gaudium (joy), still preserved in the adjective gaudy, and in gaudy (the festival day) of a college. It named St. Gaudentius, whence the Italian Gaudenzio, and the old German name of Geila.

Hilaris (cheerful) formed Hilarius, whence was called the great doctor of the Gallican Church, known to us as St. Hilary, of Poitiers; and to France, asas St. Hilaire. A namesake was the Neustrian hermit who made Jersey his abode, and thus named St. Helier; and moreover the Welsh called those who traditionally had been named Hilarius, first Ilar, then Elian; and then thought they had found their patron in the Greek Ælianus.

Portugal likewise has Hilariāo, and Russia Hilarion; and the feminine, Hilaria, was once used in England, and is still the Russian Ilaria, and Slovak Milari.

Lætus (glad) formed the substantive lætitia, which was turned into a name by the Italians as Letizia, probably during the thirst for novelty that prevailed in the Cinque-cento; and then, likewise, Lettice seems to have arisen in England, and must have become known in Ireland when Lettice Knollys was the wife of the Earl of Essex. Thence Letitia, or Letty, have been common among Irishwomen.

Prosperus, from the Latin prosper, formed of pro and spero, so as to mean favourable hope, formed the mediæval Roman Prospero, of which Shakespeare must have heard through the famous condottiere, Prospero Colonna, when he bestowed it upon his wondrous magician Duke of Milan.^[80]

Section X.—Jus.

Jus (right), and juro (to swear), are intimately connected, and have derivatives in all languages, testifying to the strong impression made by the grand system of Roman law.

Justus, the adjective which we render as just, named the Gallic St. Justus, or St. Juste, of Lyons; also the Dutch Jost; Italian Giusto; and Portuguese Justo.

Justa was a virgin martyr, but her fame was far exceeded by that of Justina, who suffered at Padua, and became the patron saint of that city, whose university made its peculiarities everywhere known. The purity of St. Justina caused her emblem to be the unicorn, since that creature is said to brook no rule but that of a spotless maiden; and poison always became manifest at the touch of its horn, for which the twisted weapon of the narwhal did duty in collections. The great battle of Lepanto was fought on St. Justina’s day, and the victory was by the Venetians attributed to her intercession; so that Giustina at Venice, Justine in France, came for the time into the foremost ranks of popularity.

The noted Justinus, whom we call Justin Martyr, was one of the greatest of the early writers of the Church, meeting the heathen philosophers upon their own ground in argument, and bequeathing to us our first positive knowledge of Christian observances. From him the name was widely spread in the Church; and Yestin was one of the many old Roman names that lingered on long among the Welsh. Justin was frequent in France and Germany, and has become confused in its contractions with Jodocus. Josse and Josselin seem to have been used for both in France; and from the latter we obtained the Joscelin, or Joycelin, once far more common in England than at present. The Swiss Jost and Jostli are likewise doubtful between the two names.

In Ireland, the name of Justin has been adopted in the M'Carthy family, as a translation of the native Saerbrethach (the noble judge).^[81]

Section XI.—Names of Holiness.

The infants whom Herod massacred at Bethlehem were termed in Latin innocentes, from in (not), and noceo (to hurt). These harmless ones were revered by the Church from the first, and honoured on the third day after Christmas as martyrs in deed. The relics of the Holy Innocents were great favourites in the middle ages, and are to be found as frequently as griffins' eggs in the list of treasures at Durham; but names taken from them are almost exclusively Roman. A lawyer of the time of Constantine was called Innocentius, and a Pope contemporary with St. Chrysostom handed it on to his successors, many of whom have subsequently assumed this title, and are called by their subjects Innocenzio.

Pius, applied at first to faithful filial love, as in the case of Æneas, assumed a higher sense with Christianity, and from being an occasional agnomen, became the name of a martyr Pope, under Antoninus Pius, and thus passed on to be one of the papal appellations most often in use, called Pio at Rome, and generally left to the pontiffs, though the feminine Pia is occasionally used in Italy. The Puritans indulged in Piety, and it still sometimes occurs in England, as well as Patience and Prudence, though the givers are little aware that there were saints long ago thus called, St. Patiens, of Lyons, and St. Prudentius, the great Christian poet of primitive times.

In like manner we have Modesty, or Moddy, as a Puritan name in England, taken from the abstract virtue, while the peasant women of Southern France are christened Modestine, probably in honour of a Roman martyr called Modestus, who was put to death at Bezières. Indeed, Modestinus and Modestus were both in use even in the earlier Roman times, and were understood by those who first bore them not in the sense of ‘shamefastness,’ but of moderation or discretion, the word coming from modus (a measure).

To these, perhaps, should be added that which Italy and Spain have presumed to form from that title of the Blessed Saviour, Salvatore, or Salvador, the latter more common in South America than in the Old World.

Cœlum (heaven) formed, in late Latin, Cœlestinus, the name of one of the popes who was martyred, and afterwards canonized, and imitated by several successors, whence the French learned the two modern feminines, Celeste and Celestine.

Restitutus (restored), from re and sisto, seems as if it could be given only in a Christian sense, as to one restored to a new life; yet its first owner known to us was a friend of Pliny, and an orator under Trajan. It came to Britain, and is found in Wales as Restyn.

Melior (better), is a Cornish female name, probably an imitation of some old Keltic one. It is found as early as 1574.

Ignatius is a difficult name to explain. Its associations are with the Eastern Church; but it occurs at a time when Latin names prevailed as much as Greek ones in the Asiatic portions of the Roman empire, and thus the Latin ignis (fire) is, perhaps, the most satisfactory derivation, though it is not unlikely that the word may come from the source both of this and of the Greek ἁγνός, purity and flame being always linked together in Indo-European ideas.

The birth-place of the great St. Ignatius is unknown, but tradition has marked him as the child whom our Lord set in the midst of His disciples, and he is known to have been the pupil of St. John, ordained by St. Peter, and at the end of his long episcopate at Antioch, he was martyred at Rome by command of Trajan, writing on his last journey the Epistles that are among the earliest treasures of the Church. So much is his memory revered in his own city, that to the present day the schismatic patriarchs of Antioch of the Monophysite sect uniformly assume the name of Ignatius on their election to their see.

The Greek Church has continued to make much use of this name, called in Russia Ignatij, Eegnatie, or Ignascha; and in the Slovak dialect cut short into Nace. The Spanish Church likewise adopted it in early times, and among the Navarrese counts and lords of Biscay, as far back as 750, we encounter both men and women called Iñigo and Iñiga, or more commonly Eneco and Eneca, used indifferently with the other form, and then Latinized into Ennicus and Ennica.

Navarre preserved the name, and it was a Navarrese gentleman, Don Iñigo Loyola, who, while recovering from his wounds, after the siege of Pampeluna, so read the lives of the saints as to become penetrated with enthusiasm as fiery as his name. Where the Jesuits have had their will may be read in the frequency of this renewed Iñigo, or Ignace, as it was in France, Ignaz in Roman Catholic Germany. It is Bohemia, where the once strong spirit of Protestantism was trodden out in blood and flame, that Ignaz is common enough to have turned into Hynek, and in Bavaria that it becomes Nazi and Nazrl.

Our English architect, whose name is associated with the unhappy medley of Greek and Gothic which was the Stuart imitation of the Cinque-cento style, was a Roman Catholic, and was no doubt christened in honour of Loyola. The few stray specimens of Inigo to be found occasionally in England are generally traceable to him; one occurs at St. Columb Major, in 1740.^[82]

The word pater, which, as we have already shown, is one of those that make the whole world kin, was the source of patria (the father-land), and of far too many words in all tongues to recount. Patres Conscripti was the title of the senators, and the patricii, the privileged class of old Rome, were so called as descendants from the original thirty patres. Patricius (the noble) was as a title given half in jest to the young Roman-British Calpurnius, who was stolen by Irish pirates in his youth, and when ransomed, returned again to be the apostle of his captors, and left a name passionately revered in that warm-hearted land. The earlier Irish, however, were far too respectful to their apostle to call themselves by his name, but were all Mael-Patraic, the shaveling, or pupil of Patrick, or Giolla-Patraic, the servant of Patrick. This latter, passing to Scotland with the mission of St. Columba, turned into the Gospatric, or Cospatrick, the boy (gossoon or garçon) of Patrick, Earls of Galloway; and in both countries the surname Gilpatrick, or Kilpatrick, has arisen from it.

Afterwards these nations left off the humble prefix, and came to calling themselves Phadrig in Ireland, Patrick in Scotland; the former so universally as to render Pat and Paddy the national soubriquet. Latterly a bold attempt has been made in Ireland to unite Patrick and Peter as the same, so as to have both patron saints at once, but the Irish will hardly persuade any one to accept it but themselves. The Scotch Pate, or Patie, is frequent, though less national; and the feminine, Patricia, seems to be a Scottish invention. The fame of the curious cave, called St. Patrick’s Purgatory, brought pilgrims from all quarters, and Patrice, Patrizio, and Patricio, all are known in France, Italy, and Spain, the latter the most frequently. Even Russia has Patrikij.

Paternus (the fatherly) was the Latin name of two Keltic saints, one Armorican, the other of Avranches, where he is popularly called Saint Pari.^[83]

Section XIV.—Grace, &c.

The history of the word grace is curious. We are apt to confuse it with the Latin gracilis (slender), with which it has no connection, and which only in later times acquired the sense of elegant, whereas it originally meant lean, or wasted, and came from a kindred word to the Greek γράω (grao), to consume.

Grates, on the contrary, were thanks, whence what was done gratiis, or gratis, was for thanks and nothing else, according to our present use of the word—whence our gratuitous. So again gratus applied to him who was thankful, and to what inspired thanks; and gratia was favour, or bounty, and was used to render the Greek χάρις; and thus have the Greek Charities come down to us as Graces. Then, too, he was gratiosus who possessed the free spirit of bounty and friendliness, exactly expressed by our gracious; but, in Italy, it was degraded into mere lively good-nature, till un grazioso is little better than a buffoon; and gracieux in France means scarcely more than engaging.

Gratia was used by early Latin writers for divine favour, whence the theological meaning of grace. And from grates (thanks) comes our expression of “saying grace before meat.”

The English name of Grace is intended as the abstract theological term, and was adopted with many others of like nature at the Reformation. Its continuation after the dying away of most of its congeners is owing to the Irish, who thought it resembled their native Grainé (love), and thereupon adopted it so plentifully that Grace or Gracie is generally to be found wherever there is an Irish connection.

Spain likewise has Engracia in honour of a maiden cruelly tortured to death at Zaragoza, in 304; and Italy, at least in Lamartine’s pretty romance, knows Graziella.

Gratianus (favourable) rose among the later Romans, and belonged to the father and to the son of the Emperor Valens, and it left the Italians Graziano for the benefit of Nerissa’s merry husband.

Pulcher (fair) turned into a name in late days, and came as Pulcheria to that noble lady on whom alone the spirit of her grandfather Theodosius in all his family descended. She was canonized, and Pulcheria thus was a recognized Greek name; but it has been little followed except in France, where Chérie is the favourite contraction.

Spes (hope) is the only one of the Christian graces in Latin who has formed any modern names; and these are the Italian Sperata (hoped for), and Speranza (hope). Esperanza in Spain, and Espérance in France, have been made Christian names.

Delicia (delightful) is an English name used in numerous families, and Languedoc has the corresponding Mesdelices, shortened into Médé, so that Mademoiselle Mesdélices is apt to be called Misé Médé in her own country. In Italy, Delizia is used.

Dulcis (sweet, or mild) is explained by Spanish authors to have been the origin of their names of Dulcia, Aldoncia, Aldonça, Adoncia, all frequent among the Navarrese and Catalonian princesses from 900 to 1200, so that it was most correct of Don Quixote to translate his Aldonça Lorenço into the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso. Probably the Moorish article was added by popular pronunciation in Spain, while Dulcia lingered in the South of France, became Douce, and came to England as Ducia in the time of the Conqueror, then turned into Dulce, and by-and-by embellished into Dulcibella, and then by Henry VIII.’s time fell into Dowsabel, a name borne by living women, as well as by the wife of Dromio. Dousie Moor, widow, was buried in 1658, at Newcastle.^[84]

The verb vinco (to conquer), the first syllable the same as our win, formed the present participle vincens, whence the name Vincentius (conquering), which was borne by two martyrs of the tenth persecution, one at Zaragoza, the other at Agen; and later by one of the great ecclesiastical authors at Lerius, in Provence. Thus Vincent, Vincente, Vincenzio, were national in France, Spain, and Italy, before the more modern saints, Vincente Ferrer, and Vincent de St. Paul, had enhanced its honours.

Even the modern Greeks have it as Binkentios.

Conquest is a word found in all classes of names,—the Sieg of the Teuton, the Nikos of the Greek.

The past participle is victus; whence the conqueror is Victor—a name of triumph congenial to the spirit of early Christianity, and borne by an early pope as well as by more than one martyr, from whom Vittore descended as rather a favourite Italian name, though not much used elsewhere till the French Revolution, when Victor came into fashion in France. Tollo is the Roman contraction, as is Tolla of the feminine.

The original Victoria was a Roman virgin, martyred in the Decian persecution; whence the Italian Vittoria, borne by the admirable daughter of the Colonne, from whom France and Germany seem to have learned it, since after her time Victoire and Victorine became very common in France; and it was from Germany that we learnt the Victoria that will, probably, sound hereafter like one of our most national names.

Section XVI.—Vita.

Vita (life) was used by the Roman Christians to express their hopes of eternity; and an Italian martyr was called Vitalis, whence the modern Italian Vitale and German Veitel.

Vitalianus, a name formed out of this, is hardly to be recognized in the Welsh form of Gwethalyn.

Vivia, from vivus (alive), was the first name of Vivia Perpetua, the noble young matron of Carthage, whose martyrdom, so circumstantially told, is one of the most grand and most affecting histories in the annals of the early Church. Her other name of Perpetua has, however, been chosen by her votaresses.

Vivianus and Viviana were names of later Roman days, often, in the West, pronounced with a B, and we find a Christian maiden, named Bibiana, put to death by a Roman governor, under Julian the Apostate, under pretence of her having destroyed one of his eyes by magic, a common excuse for persecution in the days of pretended toleration. A church was built over her remains as early as 465, and, considering the accusation against her, it is curious to find Vyvyan or Viviana the enchantress of King Arthur’s court.

Vivian has been a name for both sexes, and a Scottish Vivian Wemyss, bishop of Fife in 615, was canonized, and known to Rome as St. Bibianus.

Vitus was the child whom St. Crescentia bred up a Christian, and who died in Lucania with her. His day was the 15th of June, and had the reputation of entailing thirty days of similar weather to its own.

Vitus is Vita, in Bohemia; Vida, in Hungary; Veicht and Veidl, in Bavaria; and is used to Latinize Guy; but it is probable that this last is truly Celtic, and it shall be treated of hereafter.^[85]

Section XVII.—Wolves and Bears.

The Roman lupus had truly a right to stand high in Roman estimation, considering the good offices of the she-wolf to the founder, and the wolf and the twins will continue an emblem as long as Rome stands, in spite of the explanation that declared that the nurse was either named Lupa, or so called, because the Roman word applied to a woman of bad character, and in spite of the later relegation of the entire tale to the realms of mythology. Lupus was accordingly a surname in the Rutilian gens, and was borne by many other Romans, thus descending to the three Romanized countries. St. Lupus, or Loup of Troyes, curiously enough succeeded St. Ursus, or Ours, and was notable both for his confutation of the Pelagian heresy, and for having saved his diocese by his intercession with Attila. Another sainted Lupus, or Loup, was Bishop of Lyons. Italy has the Christian name of Lupo; Portugal, Lobo; Spain, Lope. The great poet, Lope de Vega, might be translated, the wolf of the meadow.

The bear was not in any remarkable favour at Rome; but the semi-Romans adopted Ursus as rather a favourite among their names. Ursus and Ursinus were early Gallic bishops; whence the Italian Orso and Orsino, the latter becoming the surname of the celebrated Roman family of Orsini. Ours is very common in Switzerland, in compliment to the bears of Berne.

An old myth of the little bear and the stars seems to have been turned into the legend of Cologne, of Ursula, the Breton maiden who, on her way to her betrothed British husband, was shipwrecked on the German coast, and slain by Attila, King of the Huns, with 11,000 virgin companions. Some say that the whole 11,000 rose out of the V. M. for virgin martyr; others give her one companion, named Undecimilla, and suppose that this was translated into the 11,000. Skulls and bones, apparently from an old cemetery, are shown at Cologne, and their princess’s name has been followed by various ladies.

Section XVIII.—Names from Places and Nations.

The fashion of forming names from the original birthplace was essentially Roman. Many cognomina had thus risen; but a few more must be added of too late a date to fall under the usual denominations of the earlier classical names.

The island of Cyprus must at some time have named the family of Thascius Cyprianus, that great father of African birth, who was so noted as Bishop of Carthage; but though Cyprian is everywhere known, it is nowhere common, and is barely used at Rome as Cipriano. In 1811, Ciprian was baptized in Durham cathedral; but then he was the son of the divinity lecturer, which accounts for the choice.

Neapolis, from the universal Greek word for new, and the Greek πόλις (a city), was the term bestowed as frequently by the Greeks as Newtown is by Keltic influence, or Newby and Newburgh by Teutonic. One Neapolis was the ancient Sychar, and another was that which is still known as Napoli or Naples.

From some of these ‘new cities’ was called an Alexandrian martyr, whose canonized fame caused him to be adopted as patron by one of the Roman family of Orsini, in the course of the twelfth century. Neapolion, Neapolio, or Napoleone, continued to be used in that noble house, and spread from them to other parts of Italy, and thence to Corsica, where he received it who was to raise it to become a word of terror to all Europe, and of passionate enthusiasm to France, long after, in school-boy fashion, at Brienne, its owner had been discontented with its singularity.

The city of Sidon formed the name Sidonius, which was borne by Caius Sollius Apollinaris Sidonius, one of the most curious characters of the dark ages, a literary and married bishop of Clermont, in the fifth century, an honest and earnest man, but so little according to the ordinary type of ecclesiastical sanctity, that nothing is more surprising than to find him canonized, and in possession of the 23rd of August for a feast day. It is curious, too, that his namesakes should be ladies. Sidonie is not uncommon in France; and, in 1449, Sidonia, or Zedena, is mentioned as daughter to George Podiebrand, of Silesia; and Sidonia, of Bavaria, appears in 1488.

From the city of Lydia was named the seller of purple who hearkened to St. Paul at Thyatira, and to her is owing the prevalence of Lydia among English women delighting in Scriptural names.

To these should be added, as belonging to the same class, though the word is Greek, Anatolius, meaning a native of Anatolia, the term applied in later times by the Greeks to Asia Minor, and meaning the sunrise. St. Anatolius, of Constantinople, was one of the sacred poets of the Greek Church; and after his death, in 458, his name and its feminine, Anatolia, became frequent in the countries where his hymns were used.

A Phocian is the most probable explanation of the name of Φοκας (Phocas), though much older in Greece than the date of most of those that have been here given. To us it is associated with the monster who usurped the imperial throne, and murdered Maurice and his sons; but it had previously belonged to a martyred gardener, under Diocletian, whose residence in Pontus made him well known to the Byzantine Church; and thus Phokas is still found among Greeks, and Foka in Russia.

The Romans called their enemies in North Africa Mauri, from the Greek ἀμαυρός, which at first was twilight or dim, but came afterwards to signify dark, or black.

Maura was a Gallican maiden of the ninth century, whose name, it would seem highly probable, might have been the Keltic Mohr (great), still current in Ireland and the Highlands. She led a life of great mortification, died at twenty-three, was canonized, and becoming known to the Venetians, a church in her honour named the Ionian island of Santa Maura, which had formerly been Leucadia. There was, however, a genuine Greek St. Maura, the wife of Timothy, a priest, with whom she was crucified in the Thebaid, under Maximian. She is honoured by the Eastern Church on the 3rd of May, and is the subject of a poem of Mr. Kingsley’s. From her, many Greek girls bear the name of Maura, and Russian ones of Mavra and Mavruscha.

Mauritius was naturally a term with the Romans for a man of Moorish lineage. The first saint of this name was the Tribune of the Theban legion, all Christians, who perished to a man under the blows of their fellow-soldiers, near the foot of the great St. Bernard. To this brave man is due the great frequency of Maurits, in Switzerland, passing into Maurizio on the Italian border, and Moritz on the German. The old French was Meurisse, the old English, Morris; but both, though still extant as surnames, have as Christian names been assimilated to the Latin spelling, and become Maurice. The frequent Irish Morris, and the once common Scottish Morris, are the imitation of the Gaelic Moriertagh, or sea warrior.

Meuriz is in use in Wales, and appears to be the genuine produce of Maurice; but it is very difficult to disentangle the derivations from the Moor, from ἀμαυρός, and from the Keltic mohr (large) and mör (the sea).

The Saxon Moritz, who played a double game between Charles V. and the Protestant League, was brother-in-law to the great William the Silent, and thus his name was transmitted to his nephew, the gallant champion of the United Provinces, Maurice of Nassau, in whose honour the Dutch bestowed the name of Mauritius upon their island settlement in the Indian Ocean, and this title has finally gained the victory over the native one of Cerine, and the French one of the Isle of Bourbon.

Germanus cannot be reckoned otherwise than as one of the varieties of names from countries given by the Romans. It does indeed come from the two Teutonic words gher (spear) and mann; but it cannot be classed among the names compounded of gher, since the Romans were far from thus understanding it, when, like Mauritius, it must have been inherited by some ‘young barbarian’ whose father served in the Roman legions.

St. Germanus was greatly distinguished in Kelto-Roman Church history, as having refuted Pelagius, and won the Hallelujah victory, to say nothing of certain unsatisfactory miracles. We have various places named after him, but it was the French who chiefly kept up his name, and gave it the feminine Germaine, which was borne by that lady of the family of Foix, who became the second wife of Fernando the Catholic by the name of Germana. Jermyn has at times been used in England, and became a surname.^[86]

Section XIX.—Town and Country.

Urbanus is one who dwells in urbs (a city), a person whose courtesy and statesmanship are assumed, as is shown by the words civil, from civis (a city), and polite, politic, polish, from the Greek πὸλις of the same meaning; and thus Urbane conveys something of grace and affability in contrast to rustic rudeness.

Urbanus is greeted by St. Paul; and another Urbanus was an early pope, from whom it travelled into other tongues as Urbano, Urbani, and Urban.

In opposition to this word comes that for the rustic, Pagus, signifying the country; the word that in Italian becomes paese, in Spanish pais, in French pays. The Gospel was first preached in the busy haunts of men, so that the earlier Christians were towns-folk, and the rustics long continued heathen; whence Paganus, once simply a countryman, became an idolater, a Pagan, and poetized into Paynim, was absolutely bestowed upon the Turks and Saracens in the middle ages. In the mean time, however, the rustic had come to be called paesano, pays, paysan, and peasant, independently of his religion; and Spain, in addition to her payo (the countryman), had paisano (the lover of his country); and either in the sense of habitation or patriotism, Pagano was erected into a Christian name in Italy, and Payen in France; whence England took Payne or Pain, still one of the most frequent surnames.

The two Latin words, per (through) and ager (a field), were the source of peregrinus (a traveller or wanderer), also the inhabitant of the country as opposed to the Roman colonist. The same word in time came to mean both a stranger, and above all, one on a journey to a holy place, when such pilgrimages had become special acts of devotion, and were growing into living allegories of the Christian life. This became a Christian name in Italy, because a hermit, said to have been a prince of Irish blood, settled himself in a lonely hut on one of the Apennines, near Modena, and was known there as il pellegrin, as the Latin word had become softened. He died in 643, and was canonized as St. Peregrinus, or San Pellegrino; became one of the patrons of Modena and Lucca, and had all the neighbouring spur of the Apennines called after him. Pellegrino Pelligrini is a name that we find occurring in Italian history; and when a son was born at Wesel, to Sir Richard Bertie and his wife, the Duchess of Suffolk, while they were fleeing from Queen Mary’s persecution, they named him Peregrine, “for that he was given by the Lord to his pious parents in a strange land for the consolation of their exile,” as says his baptismal register, and Peregrine in consequence came into favour in the Bertie family; but in an old register the names Philgram, Pilgerlam, and Pilggerlam, occur about 1603.

To these may perhaps be added the Italian Marino and Marina, given perhaps casually to sea-side dwellers; and their Greek equivalents, Pelagios and Pelagia, both of which are still used by the modern Greeks. Pelagius was used by the Irish, or more properly Scottish, Morgan, as a translation of his own name, and thus became tainted with the connection of the Pelagian heresy; but it did not become extinct; and Pelayo was the Spanish prince who first began the brave resistance that rendered the mountains of the Asturias a nucleus for the new kingdom of Spain.

Some see in his name a sign that the Arian opinions of the Visigoths had some hereditary influence, at least, in nomenclature; and, indeed, Ario occurs long after as a Christian name; others consider Pelago’s classical name to be a sign that the old Celto-Roman blood was coming to the surface above the Gothic.

Switzerland likewise has this name cut down to Pelei, or Poli.^[87]