On the Court Rolls of Wreyland Manor one John Wills is distinguished from another as ‘of Eastawray’ in 1710 and ‘de Eastawray’ in 1714. In 1718 Jane Clampitt of Yeo is called Jane Yeo; and, going a long way back, a man is twice called John atte Yeo and three times called John Yeo at the same sitting of the Court, 30 April 1438. In course of time the ‘atte’ or ‘de’ dropped out, and a man was known by the name of the place where he was living, or the place whence he had come. That explains why these returns have so many surnames that are names of places not far off, or corruptions of such names. The surname Bunckum (in Bovey) is a corruption of Boncombe or Buncombe, the parent hamlet of that home of eloquence, Bunkum, in North Carolina.
Among the Christian names there is Hanniball in Ilsington and Bovey, and Methusalem in Moreton; but most of them are commonplace. Out of these 1609 men 342 are John--that is, roughly, two men out of every nine--while 173 are William, 152 are Richard and 147 are Thomas; so that half the total number had one of these four names. It must have been confusing; and, having only one name each, they could not be distinguished by combinations of initials, as is usual now when people have two Christian names or more. Second names were not quite unknown then--there was Henry Frederick Thynne, a Royalist in the Civil War--but the new fashion had not yet extended to these rustic parishes.
These returns do not support the view that parents had a habit of naming children after the patron saint of the parish. The patron saint is Andrew at Moreton, and Pancras at Widdicombe; but Moreton has only twelve Andrews, whereas Widdicombe has eighteen Andrews and only one Pancras. Pancras is a pleasant name that parents might use oftener: it drops so nicely into Panny, like Pontius into Ponty. But parents are strange folk. Pontius is equivalent to Quintus, and I urged a friend of mine to call his fifth son Pontius; but he went and chose a less historic name. A great-great-uncle of mine gave one of his sons the name of Ghibelline, which is historic but not often given at the font. I imagine he was feeling very anti-Guelph just then.
A child named Flood was christened Noah; and in after years his house was known to everyone in Bovey as the Ark. Quite recently a Wreyland child was christened Cesca. I asked the mother where she got the name, and she said she got it off the washing. She took in washing, and one of her families had a daughter named Francesca, who was usually called ‘Cesca and had her linen marked that way. And really you cannot object to Cesca unless you also object to Betty and other shortened names.