Book review: What's in a Surname?, by David McKie

by David McKie
Random House
3 stars
Sam Leith

What's in a Surname? is in part a social history of surnames in general, in part a digressive meditation on their meanings (in local politics, in social hierarchy, in fiction), and in part a history of the people who have been interested in them - beginning with William Camden, the 16th-century English researcher "whose findings on surnames would not be greatly enhanced for centuries afterwards".

It's to the Normans that the British owe heritable surnames. It is to, first, curious amateurs such as Camden and, latterly, academic professionals in linguistics, genetics and anthropology that we owe such understanding of their connections and origins.

It's a book of great zest and interest, although it does go about things in a slightly odd way. In an effort to give it a framing conceit, author David McKie has paid special attention to a handful of towns called Broughton that - because they're scattered reasonably far apart - are a way into talking about the geographical distribution of surnames, and how it changed in the 19th and 20th centuries.

But in a book whose method and pleasures are anything but systematic, the whole Broughton thing looks like a gesture at a structure that was never quite going to hold the material.

The follow-your-nose quality of the book has advantages and disadvantages.