Names from Early English Wills

by Sara L. Uckelman
known in the SCA as Aryanhwy merch Catmael

© 2012-2014 Sara L. Uckelman; all rights reserved
last updated 26Jan14

The following names are from The 50 Earliest English Wills, a collection of documents from all over England dating from the end of the 14th C through the first part of the 15th C. I have extracted personal names, place names, and names of saints, which can be found in lists below, along with a discussion of name patterns and constructions. A handful of the wills also have codicils in Latin; I have converted all Latin forms of names into the nominative case, and they are noted by '[L]'. Some people, naturally, appear in the same will more than once, sometimes in different spellings. The numbers in the frequency lists below count the number of wills that a specific spelling appears in with reference to distinct men; thus, a man who appears in one will twice as Robert and once as Roberd will be counted twice in the frequency lists, once for each distinct spelling. In this way I hope to give a clear picture of the popularity and distributions of spellings.

Masculine Given Names, by frequency

Feminine Given Names, by frequency

Surnames, alphabetically

Placenames, alphabetically

Saint's names, alphabetically

The saint's names often occur in the context of names of churches or hospitals, in which case I have given the full name of the location.

Source

Frederick James Furnivall, The Fifty Earliest English Wills in the Court of Probate, London., A.D. 1387-1439, With a Priest's of 1454 (Early English Text Society, 1882).