Origin of Redpath

Would you believe IT

HOW NAMES ORIGINATED AND WHAT

THE RIDPATH NAME MEANS

"What's in a name? That which we

Call a rose; by any other name would

Smell so sweet."

William Shakespeare

Have you ever had the experience where your name was misspelled - perhaps on an account or in a letter? What are the typical misspellings or pronunciation errors associated with the Ridpath name? It strikes one very personally because the Ridpath name is your possession and identification, and it tells the world who you are. Historically, names have served as a fingerprint of life, perhaps a basic clue to one's personality. Knowledge of naming practices in our ancestral country of origin can help us trace our respective families back to a village or a place, tell us their occupation, or it can give us an idea about what our ancestors looked like. The intriguing story of surnames dates back thousands of years. How and where they began, what they originally meant, and their various spellings, is called the study of onomastics.

The first known people to acquire surnames were the Chinese. Legends suggest that the Emperor Fushi decreed the use of surnames, or family names, about 2852 BC. The Chinese customarily have three names. The surname is placed first and comes from one of the 438 words in the sacred Chinese poem Po-Chia-Hsing. The family name is followed by a generation name, taken from a poem of 30 characters adopted by each family. The given name is then placed last.

In early times, the Romans had only one name. However, they later changed to using three names. The given name stood first and was called a "praenomen". This was followed by the "nomen" which designates the gens, or clan. The last name designates the family and is known as the "cognomen". Some Romans added a fourth name, the "agnomen", to commemorate an illustrious action, or remarkable event. As the Roman Empire began to decline, family names became confused and single names once again became customary.

During the early Middle Ages, people were referred to by a single given name. But gradually the custom of adding another name as a way to distinguish individuals gained popularity. Certain distinct traits became commonly used as a part of this practice. For instance, the place of birth: St. Francis of Assisi; a descriptive characteristic: Lambert Le Tort, an Old French poet whose names mean "Lambert the Twisted"; the person's occupation: Piers Plowman; or the use of the father's name: Leif Eriksson.

By the 12th Century, the use of a second name had become so widespread that, in some places, it was considered vulgar not to have one. However, even though this custom was the source of all surnames used today, the second names used in the early Middle Ages did not apply to families, nor were they hereditary.

Whether these second names evolved into fixed, hereditary surnames is difficult to pinpoint with any accuracy since the practice advanced slowly over a period of several hundreds of years. Many fixed surnames existed alongside the more temporary bynames and descriptive terms used by the people as second names.

The modem hereditary use of surnames is a practice that originated among the Venetian aristocracy in Italy about the 10th or 11th centuries. Crusaders returning from the Holy Land took note of this custom and soon spread its use throughout Europe. France, the British Isles, and then Germany and Spain began applying the practice as the need to distinguish individuals became more important By the 1370s the word "surname" was found in documents, and had come to acquire some emotive and dynastic significance. Men sometimes sought to keep their surname alive by encouraging a collateral to adopt it when they had no direct descendants of their own in the male line. Although we can see that the handing on of a surname has become a matter of pride, we can only guess as to the reasons for adopting hereditary surnames in the first place.

Government became more and more a matter of written record. As the activities of government, particularly in the levying of taxation and the exaction of military service, touched an ever-widening range of the population, perhaps it became necessary to identify individuals accurately. In some of the larger urban communities especially, personal names were no longer sufficient to distinguish people for social as well as administrative purposes. In the countryside, manorial administrations, with its stress on hereditary succession to land, needed some means of keeping track of families and not just of individuals. We can be certain that by about 1450 at the latest, most people of whatever social rank had a fixed, hereditary surname. This surname identified the family, provided a link with the family's past, and would preserve its identity in the future. It is not surprising that the preservation of surnames became a matter of family pride. It was a cause for much regret if a man had no male descendants to whom he could pass on the surname he himself had inherited and had borne with pride.

Beginning in the 15th and 16th centuries, family names gained in popularity in Poland and Russia. The Scandinavian countries, bound by their custom of using the father's name as a second name, didn't begin using family surnames until the 19th century. Turkey waited until 1933, when the government forced the practice on its people.

In nearly every case, the nobility and wealthy landowners first used surnames, and the practice then trickled down to the merchants and commoners. The first permanent names were those of barons and landowners who derived their names from their manors and fiefs. These names became fixed through the hereditary nature of their lands. For the members of the working and middle classes seeking status, the practices of the nobility were imitated, leading to the widespread use of surnames.

It would be a difficult task to work out a simple classification of family names due to spelling and pronunciation changes over the years. Many old words had different meanings, or are now obsolete. Many family names were dependent on the competency and discretion of the writer. The same name can sometimes be spelled in different ways even in the same document.

Family names have come down to us in various ways. They may have grown out of a person's surroundings or job, or the name of an ancestor. Most surnames evolved from four general sources:

Occupation:

The local house builder, food preparer, grain grinder and suit maker, would be named respectively: John Carpenter, John Cook, John Miller and John Taylor. The person who made barrels was called Cooper. The blacksmith was called Smith. Every village had its share of Smiths, Carpenters and Millers and the Millers in one town weren’t necessarily related to the Millers in the next.

Location:

The John who lived over the hill became known as John Overhill; the one who dwelled near a stream might be dubbed John Brook. Many locational surnames originated as place names. You can tell that a surname is a locational place name if it ends with one of the regular place name elements, such as -hill, -ford, -wood, -brook, -well, and so on. Less easily recognized locational surnames end with -ton, -ham, -wick, -stead meaning a farm, or small settlement. Other common locational endings are -don, (a hill), -bury (a fortification) or -leigh, or -ley (a clearing).

Patronymic (father's name):

Many of these surnames can be recognized by the termination son, such as Williamson, Jackson, etc. Some endings used by other countries to indicate "son" are: Armenians - ian; Danes and Norwegians - sen; Finns - nen; Greeks - poulos; Spaniards - ez; and Poles - wiecz. Prefixes donating "son" are the Welsh -Ap, the Scots and Irish - Mac, and the Normans - Fitz. So, John the son of Randolph became John fitz-Randolph because "fitz" means "son of". In Wales, David the son of John tacked "ap" in front of his father's name, and David ap John was soon being called David Upjohn. In Scotland, Gilleain's descendants were known as MacGilleain and later shortened to MacLeab, McClean, McLane, and all the other versions.

Characteristic:

An unusually small person might be labeled Small, Short, Little or Lytle. A large man might be named Longfellow, Large, Lang or Long. Many persons having characteristics of a certain animal would be given the animal's name. Examples: a sly person might be named Fox; a good swimmer, Fish; a quiet man, Dove etc.

Many historians believe that surnames derived from places (locational) were the first to become hereditary. Surnames evolving from nicknames or descriptive traits (characteristic) are also of early origin. Surnames taken from occupations came later, and those of patronymic origin were the last to become hereditary. Even though patronymic names have been in use a long time, they would change with every generation:

William's son John would be known as John Williamson, while his son William would be William Johnson.

Surnames that are the most fun, the most surprising and sometimes even embarrassing, are the characteristic names. One word of caution, though: do not be distressed if the Ridpath name originally meant something you consider uncomplimentary. Remember that the definition may have applied to a Ridpath who lived centuries ago. There are obvious characteristic surnames, including Longfellow, Redd (one with red hair), and White (white complexion or hair), and their Italian and German counterparts, Bianco and Weiss, respectively. You cannot always take at face value what names seem to mean, because of changes in word meanings over the centuries. Hence the English name Stout, which brings to mind a rather fat fellow, is actually indicative of an early ancestor who was easily irritated, a noisy fellow. There are some names that leave us with an immediate picture of a person with a most distinctive physical characteristic: Stradling, an English name meaning one with bowed legs; the French Beaudry, - one with good bearing, beautiful; and the Irish Balfe, - one who stammered and stuttered. Our ancestors pulled no punches. You will have to admit that occasionally they spared no feelings.

How the Old and Distinguished Ri(e)dpath Family Got Its Name And What The

Ri(e)dpath Name Means

The surname Ri(e)dpath appears to be locational in origin. Research indicates that it can be associated with the English, meaning, "dweller at the red wood". Although this interpretation is the result of onomastic research, you may find other meanings for the Ri(e)dpath family name. Many surnames have more than one origin. For instance, the English surname "Bell" may designate one who lived or worked at the sign of the bell, or it may refer to a bellringer, or bellmaker. It may be a nickname for "the handsome one", from the Old French word "bel" which means beautiful. It could also indicate the descendant of "Bel", or pet form of Isabel

When you begin to do more extensive research on the Ri(e)dpath name you may have difficulty finding it with the exact spelling which you use today. It, in fact, may very well have been spelled differently hundreds of years ago, or you may even know of someone in your families past who actually changed his name. The more research you do, the more likely you'll find several different spellings. Language changes, carelessness and a high degree of illiteracy (sometimes the man himself did not know how to spell his own name) compounded the number of ways a name might have been spelled. Often the town clerk spelled the name the way it sounded to him.

Spelling Variations Of The Family Name

Knowing that different spellings of the same original surname are a common occurrence, it is not surprising that dictionaries of surnames indicate probable spelling variations of the Ridpath surname to be Redpath, Reedpath, Riedpath, Ridpeth, Ridpathe and Ridpathes and so on. Although bearers of the old and distinguished Ridpath name comprise a small percentage of individuals living in the world today, there may be a large number of your direct relatives who are using one of the Ridpath name variations.

So RI(E)DPATH is of locational origin, and means "One who came from, or held land in, REDPATH" - a village in Berwickshire, Scotland. The local pronunciation of the place-name is Rippath; it means "reedy passage".

Early records show William de Redepathe of Berwick rendered homage in 1296. Alexander de Redpeth received monies for the lans of Deington in 1329. Thomas de Redpath and Mariona, his spouse, had grant of lands in the vill and terrotory of Preston in the barony of Bunkyle from Thomas Stewart, earl of Angus, confirmed by Robert II in 1376 Walter Redpeth held land in Edinburgh in 1486. Cristal Ridpetht was a witness in Kirwall in 1557. Thomas Reidpeth was retunred hein the lands of Middel Winscheill in 1602 and David Redpeth was skipper in Barrowstoune in 1655. John Ridpath, tinker and adulteress, was imprisoned in Edinburgh Tollbooth, he was whipped and banished to the plantations in 1662. George Ridpath, journalist, was imprisoned in Edinburgh in 1681 for burning an effigy of the pope, he was committed to Newgate prison in 1712 for libeling the government. George Ridpath, minister of Stitchill, Scotland, from 1742 to 1772, published "The Border History of England and Scotland".