The Pollentine in my family began as Pollington and is found as Pollingden, Ballentine, Pallemtime and Pollitino. Surnames sometimes change less obviously, like one Jane Dyer recorded in Australian death records as Jenny Droyer. Slight misspellings are more frequent; Phillip and Philips are often confused as are Mathews and Matthews, Murry and Murray, Marsland and Marland, and Reay and Rea .

I have seen ‘Reay formerly Rea’ on one death certificate. Such name changes were normally without legal process and surviving records are unlikely, except when rarely when deed poll records were enrolled at the Supreme Court of Judicature and held at The National Archives. Sometimes, however, solicitors placed newspaper advertisements, as for one Grace Pollington who changed her surname to Aghassy  in 1946.

Names may change for very different reasons. If a family disappears from the census you might just find them elsewhere living under false names to escape debts, a not uncommon occurrence in Victorian and Edwardian times.

Many surnames had geographical associations. Molyneux was chiefly Lancastrian, although French in origin, and Wilberforce from Yorkshire. Haydock is a Merseyside name after Haydock village, Fawkes a Gloucestershire name from the Old French for ‘falcon’, and from Hertfordshire we have Atkin, from Ade-kin, a pet form of Adam. Tautz is found mostly in London, Giblin in London, Sussex and Merseyside, and Guyan in a small region of NE Scotland. Clague, Shimmin and Teare are Manx, and Owen is common in Wales as is Pritchard (from ap Richard, ‘son of Richard’). Patton is often Scottish, a Scottish Patton being the ancestor of the famous American general.

When two branches of the same family show parents with identical surnames, it may indicate that cousins married. Thus the mothers of my great-grandfather and great-grandmother were the sisters Caroline Smailes and Martha Smailes .

When two siblings marry spouses with the same surname it can be coincidence, though; my mother and her sister both married unrelated men called Matthews. But two of four brothers in one tree married the sisters Mary Giblin and Jane Giblin and the other two brothers married mother and daughter Elizabeth Tautz and Emma Tautz. Of course a baby born with the mother’s maiden name may indicate illegitimacy, although if the parents subsequently marry the child might take the father’s name later. Thus Florence Phillips had a daughter, also called Florence, before her marriage to Frederick Garland, and this daughter appears as Florence Phillips on the birth index but later in censuses as Florence Garland .

Unusual and resonant names have a fascination of their own. I always assumed Hornblower was a fictional name from C S Forester’s novels until encountering one Colonel Hornblower whom records show donating a painting to an art gallery. The Old English name refers someone who blew a horn to summon workmen. Death often derives from D’Ath, after the Belgian town of Ath, and is thus ultimately Flemish. The name Flashman is familiar from a character in Thomas Hughes’ Tom Brown’s School Days revisited in George McDonald Fraser’s novels, but the name is real enough, originating from Flaxman, an occupational name. I once noted the name Johnny Morocco, discovering that Morocco can be an Italian name indicating a Moroccan.

Foreign names are often anglicised, like the Irish Gaelic O’Luannaugh becoming Looney and the Welsh Llwyd becoming Lloyd (which in turn can become Floyd). The Bengali Banerjee, Chatterjee and Mukherjee are Anglicised forms of Bandhopadhay, Chatophadhay and Mukhopadhay. Greek names are often anglicised along predictable lines, with Stavros becoming Steve and Dimitrios becoming Jim or James. The Italian American gangster Charlie ‘Lucky’ Luciano was named at birth Salvatore Lacania, while the original surname of the Jewish-American gangster Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegel was Siegelbaum .

First names
Variant first names and nicknames can mislead. I once searched for a Madge under Margaret only to find her name was Marjorie. Another relative known as Sissy turned out to be Dorothy Grace. I wrongly assumed her name was something like Priscilla, but she was called Sissy because she was the family’s only sister. Local nicknames can be unexpected, like Doddy for George in North East Scotland.

When children are named after their parents, variant names help distinguish individuals. Florence Phillips had a daughter called Florence known as Flo whose own daughter was another Florence known as Florrie .

Censuses can confuse genders. In 1881 a Grace Pollentine (female) wrongly occurs as a George Pollentine (male). Be wary of Francis and Frances; the first should be male and the second female, but the male painter Francis Pollentine (1847-1883) wrongly appears in 1881 as Frances and female. Pat of course can be Patricia or Patrick, and Jessie is generally female and Jesse (as in Jesse James) male.

Middle names
Middle names can help distinguish two related individuals otherwise named the same. A plain Louisa was the daughter of Louisa Elizabeth, and Frederick George Garland the son of Frederick James Garland. The middle name itself often refers to a parent or grandparent, the above James deriving from a grandfather. Similarly, my own middle name John refers to my father John Cecil, and with William Craig Reay, Craig was William’s grandfather’s surname. Some people are commonly known by their second name. One Gordon I searched for turned out to be John Gordon but known just as Gordon. The Beatle James Paul McCartney is a more famous example.

In the print edition
Read Paul’s articles about South Wales industry and Aberdeenshire in Issue 4 of Discover Your Ancestors, out now in newsagents and available at discoveryourancestors.co.uk

Further reading

• The Penguin Dictionary of British Surnames by John Titford, Penguin Books, 2009
• The Surnames Handbook by Debbie Kennett, The History Press, 2012