The Earliest London House Names
The Earliest London House Names
294 pre-1400 London house names given in Appendix 1 are analysed as to meaning and structure. Before 1300 haw, bury, seld, hall and house were the predominant medieval house-naming nouns, but haw, bury and seld dropped out around the Norman Conquest. Modifiers were limited to the householders’ name, the householders’ occupation, and the appearance of the house. From the 1320s heraldic names became common for commercial premises, adopting the emblems used by chivalric knights. Commercial premises also used synecdoche to signal their wares (such as the Cock referencing the stopcock on a barrel), and double meanings were exploited visually on signage. Cock seems to have been the first (literal meaning ‘tap’, punning meaning ‘fowl’), starting a fashion for bird names. By the 1700s an extensive informal code of trade signs had evolved, such as a rainbow to signify a dyer. From 1762 numbering replaced urban building signs, with the exception of bookshops and pubs.
Keywords: medieval house-names, heraldic names, commercial premises, synecdoche
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