Cirencester-born virtuoso drummer, Cozy Powell, real name Colin Flooks, was nicknamed Cozy during his schooldays, after the black American Jazz drummer Cozy Cole (of Cab Calloway and Louis Armstrong). Our Cozy chose to honour his adoptive mother by using her maiden name, ‘Powell’ as his stage surname.
Powell is a name strongly associated with Cirencester, being how the Blue and Yellow schools became known when they were amalgamated in 1876, both having been founded by a Powell family.
The name ‘Powell’ didn’t start out as it eventually became when families using it came to England. Whereas the name ‘Flooks’ is found in various parts of Wiltshire, where it’s thought to have described families who caught flounder fish – known as ‘flukes’ – in the River Severn, the Powells, in common with many families who settled for centuries around Cirencester, came originally from Wales. Their name was ‘ap-Hywel’, meaning ‘son of Hywel’.
Surnames weren’t common in England until after William the Conqueror invaded in 1066, so various ways of creating them developed. Unsurprisingly some early surnames took the father’s name and added a prefix or suffix meaning ‘son’.
Only rarely was there a female version. Iceland added ‘dottir’ to the father’s name, and Russian names would use ‘-ov’ for sons and ‘-ova’ for daughters. How names of women are scrapped when they marry is akin to the surnames given before the abolition of slavery to ‘human property’ labelled under their owners’ names. The gender imbalance becomes more obvious if you search for childhood friends on the internet: the loss of so many maiden names means it’s easiest to find boys who keep their childhood identity. Paternalism prevails.
Some people change their names deliberately, either to hide their true background or even for career advantage – like Cozy Powell. A funeral director, for example, might decide the surname ‘Box’ is inappropriate. Where names can lead to problems is when they suggest you’re from a location associated with an enemy. During the First World War people named ‘German’ in Britain changed the spelling of their name to ‘Jermyn’. Many immigrants find their names are ‘Anglicised’ in a similar way that ‘ap Hywel’ became Powell, especially if their name is usually written with different characters in the country from which they originate. In Gloucestershire numerous Welsh names feature in the commonest examples listed by websites for the county. It can be fascinating to visit such sites and discover information about your own name and those of your friends.
Many names came about to describe peoples’ jobs – the most obvious being Smith. Cirencester has its fair share of the descendants of metalworkers. But wherever you go there are likely to be good examples of local speciality trades. One might imagine that the family of Larry Dyer who trades in Antiques in the Corn Hall Friday Market have inhabited the local area for many centuries, especially as one of Ciren’s main streets is called Dyer Street, but Larry’s forebears moved down from the Northwest of England where they developed the skills to qualify them to move to a warmer drier area! Welsh and Cornish names are found all over the world, wherever mining skills are valuable.
Arrowsmith’s mother and grandmother used to meet a group of friends every Friday in Anne’s Pantry. A regular consumer of tea and honeybuns was Mrs Clutterbuck, Arrowsmith thought hers was a very funny name. The name appears to be an Anglicisation from Flemish, and it seems likely the family was brought to Gloucestershire in the 14th century by the Black Prince, Edward III to improve English weaving skills.
Your name as we see, may become your fate or your fortune.
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