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RE: crusaders
Fri, 27 Jan 2006 15:15:40 +0000 (UTC) soc.genealogy.medieval
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mllt1...
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< '-cott', and Ford has merely stated how experts explain it. >> It was I who suggested to Bob that Turcott might have originated as a pet form of Turc, so I ought defend my suggestion. bobturcott...
Middle English commonly produced pet forms of names by first shortening them (eg Thomas to Tom; Richard to Rick, Dick, Hick; Robert to Rob, Hob, Dob etc) and then adding one of a list of suffixes, -kin, -el, et, -in being the most common (thus producing, for example, Tomkin, Tomsett, Tomlin - the last is a double suffix, Tom-el-in). This what Bob means by an elongated version. bobturcott...
Reaney and Wilson said something to the effect that von Feilitzen explained the Cambridgeshire Domesday references to Turch, Turcus, as the Old Norse personal name Thorkell, with an A-N loss of the -ell, and added that it seemed clear to them that Turc was used as a pet form of the Scandinavian name. bobturcott...
If so, then it is quite possible that the pet form Turc-et also existed, and gave rise to a patronymic surname. The modern spelling of Turcott need not limit us to looking for a place-name origin. The difference between Turcott and Turcett is insignificant enough to allow an origin as a patronym. bobturcott...
It also occurs to me that if Thorkell could be shortened to Turk by loss of the -ell, so also could the Anglo-Scandinavian name Thorketil be shortened to Turket. bobturcott...
That said, I do think an origin as a place-name is the most likely explanation for Turcott, as I said in my own post earlier. And I am curious to know why Bob is so sure the name is French. What is the evidence for this? Is it that he has traced the surname back to emigrants from France? bobturcott...
Lastly, Ford's suggestion that the first holder of the surname might have been a cottar is to conflate two distinct stages in the formation of a toponymic surname. The place-name Turcott would have been formed because it consisted of cotlands, or cottars lived there. However the surname could (indeed would probably) have been formed centuries later, when someone took his name from the place. By then the tenurial nature of the place would probably have changed, and that person need not have been a cottar - indeed he could even have been the lord of the place. Matt Tompkins bobturcott...
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