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03.03.2026 10:17
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Many place-names are deceptive, so it’s not surprising that many people have assumed that the striking place-name Pity Me can’t really be what it seems. What is it, though?
Today's name story is written by Emeritus Professor Diana Whaley of @newcastleuni.bsky.social.
www.snsbi.org.uk/exploring-na...
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Today we continue the name story of Hamilton. In Part 3: Where do we find Hamiltons today? we discover that surnames are not only about lineage and inheritance, they are about journeys. Find out about migration and the productivity of the name here: www.snsbi.org.uk/exploring-na...
Book for the conference and coach trip here: docs.google.com/.../1FAIpQLS....
Delegates will need to book their own accommodation.
The keynote talk on Friday evening will be given by Prof Mark Bailey of the University of East Anglia. Mark is a leading scholar of medieval Suffolk and he will talk on 'The estates of Bury St Edmunds abbey 1250 to 1450'.
The conference formally starts after dinner on Friday evening. There will be a full programme of papers and project reports on Saturday and Sunday, including a coach trip on Sunday afternoon to Long Melford and Lavenham.
THIRTY-SECOND ANNUAL CONFERENCE
Spring conference March 27-29 2026
The Guildhall, Guildhall St, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Join us for our 32nd annual conference, which will take place in the Guildhall, a beautiful medieval building in the historic town of Bury St Edmunds.
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This name story continues the story of Hamilton. In part 2, we consider the spread of the family name as it was carried far from its place of origin. It is written by Professor Peter McClure, Honorary Professor (Name-Studies) @uniofnottingham.bsky.social
www.snsbi.org.uk/exploring-na...
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Our next name story explores the origin of the Hamilton family name, and is written by Peter McClure, Honorary Professor (Name Studies) at the University of Nottingham. Have a look! 👀
www.snsbi.org.uk/exploring-na...
Take a look at the second part of our Mills and Boon story www.snsbi.org.uk/exploring-na....
Both stories show changes in status and mobility.
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visit-burystedmunds.co.uk/business-dir...
Talks will normally be 30 minutes, including time for questions, but shorter or longer offerings will also be considered.
Please submit a title and abstract to Keith Briggs at bury2026@snsbi.org.uk.
Any topic in place-names, personal names, or other names will be considered. Contact Keith!
Call for Papers!
Our Spring Conference @snsbi.bsky.social will be held on 27-29 March 2026 in the historic Athenaeum in Bury St Edmunds.
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Read about the surname Boon in Mills & Boon part 2: Boon.
We cannot know which of its several possible sources lie behind Gerald Mills’s surname, but the probability is that it originated in one of the essential peasant occupations of medieval Britain.
Topographical surnames such as Brook(s), Mill(s), Style(s) and Wood(s) were the first to be altered in this way.
Surnames with a meaningless excrescent -s became increasingly frequent in the 16th and 17th centuries, especially in the West Midlands, where the habit may have been imitating hereditary patronymic surnames with final -s (e.g. Jones (surname) and Williams).
The chief source of Mills is a common Middle English topographical expression, atte mille ‘at the mill’, to which a meaningless -s was added after Mill had become a hereditary surname, i.e. a family name, in the 15th century or earlier.
Mills might once have meant ‘Mille’s (son)’ or perhaps ‘Mille’s (servant)’, an occupational surname. On the other hand, Miles and Mille are far from common as baptismal names in medieval England.
Patronymics (from the name of a father) are the second largest category of English surnames but metronymics (from a mother’s name, probably often a widow) are far less common.
Mills has several possible origins. It could be a patronymic from the Middle English male personal name Miles, or a metronymic from Mille, a pet form of the female personal name Millicent.
The surname is in fact common and widespread across the UK, ranking 80th, with 38,742 bearers in the 1881 census.
The name has a long history in the locality. In 1573 a William Mills is recorded in Kidderminster, six miles from Old Swinford; in 1641 a Thomas Mills is recorded in Old Swinford itself; and in 1769 a Nancy Mills is recorded in Halesowen.
Gerald Mills’s father, Harry, was born in Wordsley (Staffordshire), two miles from Old Swinford (in Stourbridge, Worcestershire), where Harry’s mother was born, and two miles from Halesowen, where Harry grew up, fatherless, with his mother and his uncle, a master tailor.
Their backgrounds were at opposite ends of the social scale. Mills was the son of a well-to-do West Midlands solicitor and was educated at a university college in Birmingham and Caius College Cambridge. Boon was born into a poor, London household, eldest son of a brewer’s servant.
