to them. One of the better-known examples is:
There was a young lady named Bright.
Who could travel much faster than light.
She started one day.
In the relative way,
And came back the previous night.
Brightey see BIRDSEYE.
Brightman see BRIGHT.
Brightrich see BARTRICK.
Brigman see BRIDGE.
Brill see FISH.
Brisbane, Brisbourne (Eng) A bone-breaker. Reaney mentions a similar surname CRAKEBONE and suggests that the reference is to the sheriff’s officer who broke the legs of condemned criminals.
Britain, Britner, Britnor, Briton, Britt, Brittain, Brittan, Brittian, Brittin, Brittney, Britton, Brittoner, Britts see BRETON.
Broadfoot see PUDDY.
Broadhead (Eng) A descriptive nickname.
Brockhouse, Brockis, Brockman, Brockway, Broke, Brokus see BROOK.
Bronson see BROWN.
Brontë (Irish) The grandparents of the Brontë sisters lived in County Down and were known as BRUNTY, a form of PRUNTY or PRONTY, from a Gaelic name meaning ‘bestower, a generous person.’ The girls’ father then changed Brunty to Bronte, the Greek word for ‘thunder.’
In her Life of Charlotte Brontë Mrs Gaskell remarks that ‘about this time, to her more familiar correspondents, she occasionally calls herself Charles Thunder, making a kind of pseudonym for herself out of her Christian name, and the meaning of her Greek surname.’
Brook, Brockhouse, Brockis, Brockman, Brockway, Broke, Brokus, Brookbank, Brookbanks, Brooke, Brooker, Brookes, Brookfield, Brookhouse, Brooking, Brookings, Brookman, Brookmire, Brooks, Brooksbank, Brooksby, Brookshank, Brookshaw, Bruck, Brucker, Bruckshaw (Eng) Descendant of someone who lived near a brook or someone who originally came from any of the places named for its brook.
Lower also reports that a child found abandoned by the side of a brook, wrapped in a napkin, was duly named ‘Napkin Brooker’ by the parish authorities.
Roger Brook is the British secret agent hero of a series of novels by Dennis Wheatley. Dorothea Brooke is the rather more complex heroine of George Eliot’s Middlemarch, which has been described as the best novel written in English.
Broster see BREWER.
Brougham (Eng) Descendant of someone who originally came from a place in Cumbria so-named because it was a ‘homestead near a fortress.’
Broughton (Eng) Someone who came from one of the several places so-named because it was a ‘settlement near a brook, or by a narrow hill, or by a fortified manor.’
Broun, Broune see BROWN.
Brouwer, Brower see BREWER.
Brown, Bronson, Broun, Broune, Browne, Brownson, Brunson (Eng) A reference to a person’s brown hair or skin.
Thomas Hughes waxes lyrical in Tom Brown’s Schooldays about the part that families named Brown have played in British history. He says that they may be ‘quiet, dogged an homespun’ but they have done as much for their country as the ‘Talbots, Stanleys, St Maurs, and suchlike folk.’
Another fictional schoolboy is William Brown, hero of many comic adventures written by Richmal Crompton.
Charlie Brown features with his dog Snoopy, not to mention his friends Linus and Lucy, in the strip-cartoon series Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz.
Chesterton’s Father Brown is a priestly detective in many short stories, who would probably have appreciated the epitaph for a dentist named John Brown which runs:
Stranger! Approach this spot with gravity!.
John Brown is filling his last cavity.
Brownie see BIRDSEYE.
Brownjohn (Eng) The name derives from a man named John who had brown hair.
Kingsley Amis comments in Ending Up: ‘Mr Brownjohn’s a good man.’ ‘Unbelievable name, that. I do very much wonder how he came by it – I should say, how his ancestor came by it.’
Brownnutt, Brownhut, Brownutt (Eng) A descriptive nickname, found also as NUTBROWN.
Brownsmith (Eng) Occupational name of a coppersmith.
Brownutt see BROWNNUTT.
Bruck, Brucker, Bruckshaw see BROOK.
Brugäre, Bruhiäre see BREWER.
Bruggen, Brugger see BRIDGE.
Brunson see BROWN.
Brunty see BRONTË.
Bruster see BREWER.
Bruttner, Brutton see BRETON.
Bryan, Bryant see BRIAN.
Bryce see PRICE.
Brydges see BRIDGE.
Brydson see KILBRIDE.
Buchanan (Scot) Descendant of someone who came from the Stirlingshire district of this name, ‘house of the canon.’
James Herbert writes, in his novel Sepulchre: ‘He was Alexander Buchanan, a suitably sturdy name for an underwriter whose firm, Acorn Buchanan Limited, had a ‘box’ on the floor of Lloyd’s of London and company offices near Fenchurch Street.’
Bucher see BUTCHER.
Buck (Eng) Probably a nickname for a lecherous man, though some professional connection with stags or goats is also possible. In some instances there may be a reference to residence near a ‘beech’ tree.
Warwick Deeping presumably had the American slang meaning of buck (‘dollar’) in mind when he wrote, in Sorrell and Son: ‘Buck! He did not like the name; it was both too male and too American.’
Bucket (Eng) A well-known character in the BBC television series Keeping up Appearances tries to deflect any derision that this name
