To-name

sb. Now dial. Also 3–4 tuo-, tou-, 4 tow-, 4, 7 too-, 9 Sc. dial. tee-name. [OE. tó-nama, f. TO-¹ + NAME sb. So MLG. toname, Du. toenaam, MHG. zuoname, G. zuname.] A name or epithet added to an original name; a cognomen, surname, nickname; now in Sc. a name added to distinguish one individual from another or others having the same Christian name and surname, a ‘by-name.’

c. 950.  Lindisf. Gosp., Mark v. 9. [Hælend] ʓefreʓn hine huætd ðe tonoma is? & cuæð to him here tonoma me is, forðon moniʓ we sindon.

c. 1200.  Trin. Coll. Hom., 143. Ðes wimman hadde ec on toname magdalene … Nu ȝie habbeð iherd þes wimmanes name & ec hire toname.

1303.  R. Brunne, Handl. Synne, 4741. Þe bysshope Seynt Roberd; Hys toname ys ‘Grostest Of Lynkolne.’

1382.  Wyclif, Ecclus. xlvii. 19. The name of the Lord, to whom is the toname [1388 surname] God of Irael.

1567.  Sir R. Maitland, Complaynt, vii. Thay theifis that steillis and tursis hame, Ilk ane o’ them has ane to-name; Will of the Lawis, Hab of the Schawis.

1636.  in Ld. A. Campbell, Rec. Argyll (1885), 5. Archibald, Earl of Argyle, his too name was Gillispick Dow.

1823.  Scott, Quentin D., iii. ‘They call my kinsman Ludovic with the Scar,’ said Quentin.—‘Our family names are so common in a Scotish house, that, where there is no land in the case, we always give a to-name.’

1870.  F. Buckland in Bompas, Life, xi. 243. There were no less than seven men every one of whom was a ‘David Main,’ hence the necessity of Tee names, to distinguish one person from the other.

  Hence To-name v. trans., to give a to-name to.

1775.  Buchanan, Inquiry Anc. Scott. Surnames, 49. Brian Kennedy, to named Boraimh, or Taxer.