THE ORIGINS OF RIGGS & SIMILAR SURNAMES

RIGGS AND RIGG ARE CURRENTLY SEPARATE

The following maps illustrate the two distinctly different distributions of the two surnames RIGGS and RIGG, plotted by their 'relative densities' (see Appendix 1) using as base data the 1881 census of Great Britain:

RIGGS occurs primarily in the south-west of England, mainly in Dorset and in the areas adjacent to its borders (Devon, Somerset, and Hampshire). The surname was ranked 68th in the top 100 names for Dorset at the time of the 1881 census, with a 'percentage frequency' of 0.21% (i.e. 21 occurrences out of every 10,000 of the population). RIGGS also occurs in much smaller numbers in the southeast of England and elsewhere.

RIGG(E) is found predominantly in the north of England (particularly the Lake District), reflecting the number of features and placenames ending in RIGG in those regions. RIGG is ranked 42nd in the top 50 names for Westmorland in the 1881 census, with a 'percentage frequency' of 0.33%. Hawkshead, where RIGGE was originally found in large numbers, though administratively part of Lancashire, was in Ulverston Registration District (see 5(b) below) and was the most northern parish, bordered by the Kendal Registration District of Westmorland to the north and east.

Both RIGG and RIGGS are found in Scotland, particularly the south-west, but research has shown that the polarisation between them was sometimes blurred, with the surname interchanging even in the late nineteenth century. The ancestors of the RIGGS in Clackmannanshire in the 1881-1901 censuses, for example, were recorded as RIGG in the 1841-1871 censuses.

The polarisation is consistent with Dr. David Hey's analysis of data for certain surnames in the Civil Registration indexes of deaths registered from 1842 to 1846 which confirms, inter alia, that RIGGS and RIGGS are two distinct surnames. The following is an extract from the 1997 Phillimore Lecture which he delivered to the British Association for Local History; note that I have broken it up into separate paragraphs to reflect Dr. Hey's separate points:-

Other topographical surnames have marked regional distributions even when they undoubtedly have multiple origins. This is what we might expect when we consider that many features of the landscape were named in local speech.

Thus, it is no surprise to find that the surname Rigg comes from northern England, where the word ridge was pronounced in that way. People with this surname were registered 188 times in the death indexes of 1842-46 (Figure 5). Their strongholds were Cumbria, Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire, with particular concentrations in Rochdale (28) and Kendal (21).

The distribution of' the surname is totally different from that of Riggs, which Reaney and Wilson suggest also means 'dweller by the ridge'. In the 1842-46 death indexes (Figure 6) the 57 people with the surname Riggs had lived overwhelmingly in Dorset and neighbouring counties. Indeed, the distribution is so tight as to suggest a single-family origin for this name.

It may be noted also that the similar-sounding name Rix has an entirely different distribution, for more than three out of four people with this name came from Norfolk … The etymology of this name is uncertain. Reaney and Wilson's first suggestion - a pet form of Richard - is the most likely one.

Their second suggestion - 'dweller by the rushes', derived from the dialect of Dorset, Somerset and Devon - cannot be correct as the surname is not found in that part of England. Riggs, rather than Rix, is from those counties, so perhaps that name is derived from rushes rather than ridge.

ORIGINS OF RIGGS IN THE WEST COUNTRY

REAKS, REEKS, REX, RICKS, RIGGS

The following map and its accompanying table illustrate how the occurrences of the surnames REAK(E)S, REE(C)K(E)S, REX and RICKS were concentrated in the West Country.

The numbers are those recorded in the 1881 census for Britain, after the mid-nineteenth century recession in agriculture had created economic depression in the West Country. As a consequence of that economic depression, significant numbers of West Country labourers had migrated to work in the industries of South Wales, which is why the area analysed has been extended to include Glamorgan and Monmouthshire:

SURNAMES AND NO.OF OCCURRENCES	TOTAL		WEST COUNTRY	PRIMARY COUNTY
REAKES=268; REAKS=30	298		72%=213	Somerset	57%=169
RIGGS=1,024; RIGS=8	1,032		64%=662	Dorset	38%=394
RICKS=378	378		57%=217	Wiltshire	30%=112
REEKS=462; REEKES=20; REECKS=20	502		48%=240	Hampshire	21%=109
REX=476; RECKS=11; REGGS=2	489		45%=220	Somerset	15%=71

This supports my belief that the above surnames are 'cognates' of the surname RIGGS in the West Country ('cognates' are words of the same linguistic family developing in parallel). This is only partly supported by the Dictionaries of Surnames, which do not associate RIGGS with the others or recognise the polarity separating RIGG and RIGGS (see 4 below).

THE DORSET DIALECT

The Wessex dialect in the UK is a strong one and each West Country county has its own distinctive form. In Dorset, the surname of families in the early records are shown to have evolved from REEKS to RICKS and then RIGGS. That evolutionary process is explained in William Barnes's Glossary of the Dorset Dialect:

page 1: "the Dorset ê is unheard, as a long one, in book-English. It is a sound between that of ee in meet, and a in mate; and although it is often, if not mostly, heard in English as that of i in bid, (which is neither beed, nor bed), yet it is not easily voiced as a long sound by others than Dorset or western people."

page 6: refers to "sundry pennings of the breath through the mouth", explaining that "K.P.T. are hard pennings, G.B.D. are mild pennings - the breathing being harder in the former than in the latter three."

page 8: "In Dorset, as in other tongues, there are cases of over-wielding among breath-pennings, of cases in which a penning when it touches another of an unlike kind, so far overwields it as to mould it into a form like its own - for 'thank God' we often say 'thang God'. k in thank is a hard penning and G in God is its soft form, and the k on touching of the g is in Dorset often moulded into g."

EVOLUTION IN DORSET PARISH REGISTERS

Allowance must be made for the fact that surnames were entered in the older parish registers to reflect how they had been pronounced by the parties concerned, i.e. what had been heard and in some cases how the person making the entry felt that name should be spelt. In examining such entries, it should be established where possible whether they were made by the same person, or by different persons.

The Dorset Parish Registers have been personally examined only for the surname RIGGS, except for the parish of Cheselbourne where other possible cognates or variations in spelling have also been noted. All other data used here has been taken from the LDS British Isles Vital Records Index . This raises two other caveats: firstly, the data may contain transcription errors and, secondly, it is mainly from Bishops Transcripts and not the parish registers themselves. It is therefore at best tertiary data rather than primary or secondary data.

Nevertheless, Appendix 2 contains entries that are apparently in the registers of the following surnames, and gives examples of them varying over time within the same apparent family: REAKES, REAKS, RECKS, REECKS, REEKES, REEKS, REEX, REGES, REX, RICK, RICKES, RICKS, RIGGAS, RIGGES, RIGGS, RIGS and RIX.

This seems to corroborate that the group of West Country surnames associated with RIGGS were interchangeable at the time that surnames, and their spellings, were stabilising in Dorset.

ORIGINS OF RIGGS ELSEWHERE

Dr. Hey stated in his article above that the distribution of the surname RIGGS in Dorset and neighbouring counties is so tight as to suggest a single-family origin for this name. That may eventually prove to be the case in the Dorset area. But there were also a much smaller number of occurrences of the surname RIGGS in the south-east of England in the 16th and early 17th centuries, at the time surnames were still stabilising in some parts of England and these apparently had multiple origins.

Dr Hey also referred to the word 'ridge' being pronounced 'rigg' in northern England. Another source suggests this was more wide spread, stating that some letters had different sounds in mediaeval usage, and quoting as an example "the surname Judge would normally be spelt Jugge".

If correct, then the surname RIDGE would similarly be spelt RIGGE which, in most cases, would have metamorphosised into RIGG. That is because words ending with an "e" after a consonant normally dropped that "e" as the language evolved into the modern form of spelling. !n the 1881 Census there were 60 RIGGE compared with 2,509 RIGG.

Presumably, the same would apply to the plural forms, whereby the surname RIDGES would be spelt RIGGES which metamorphosised into RIGGS.

There are examples of RIDGES stabilising into RIGGS in Essex, and RIDGE stabilising into RIGGS in Hampshire.

Within the family of Miles RIGGES in Roydon, Essex: (a) his wife Angnes (sic) was buried in 1579 as the wife of Miles RIDGES. (b) his son Richard was married in 1575 as RIDGES, served as a Juror in 1580 as RIGGES and his wife was buried in 1603 as RIGGS. (c) When Richard's probable children were baptised, his surname was entered in the registers as MYLES (1576), RIDGES (1578), MILES (1581), RIGGES (1583 and 1586) and RIGGS (1589). Note that "Miles" appears to have been his patronymic byname (one that was not hereditary), rather than his surname. (d) Richard's son Francis was baptised and married, and his five children were all baptised, as RIGGS or RIGGS and he was named as RIGGS in 1641 when he appeared at the Quarter Sessions to give evidence against a labourer who had stolen articles belonging to him. But as late as 1649, he signed a Waymen's certificate presented to the Quarter Sessions as "ffrancis RIDGES".

Within the family of Thomas RIGGS the Mayor of Southampton, Hampshire: (a) The Will of his son Edward, which was proved in 1566, was made in the name of "Edward RYDGE or RIDGE, Gentleman of Southampton, Hampshire". (b) Thomas's great-grandson William was baptised as RIGGS on 2nd April 1577 in Fareham (near Portsmouth) in Hampshire and buried the following day as RIDGE.

However, in the 1881 census the surname RIDGE occurred throughout Britain (see 4.1 below), and, although Devon was the county with the second highest density of the surname (and 250 occurrences out of the total 2,124), no link between RIDGE and RIGGS has been found there.

Of the 113 RIDGES in the LDS index, as many as 40 are transcription errors, either by the enumerator or by the indexers. Cross-checking against other censuses and the Civil Registration indexes confirmed the correct surname (which in the case of those 40 proved to be either Ridge, Ridgers, Rogers, Riches, Bridge or Bridges). 46 of the remaining 73 entries for RIDGES, occurred in Hampshire, and a further 17 were for families that had originally come from Hampshire, with the remaining 10 being in the adjacent county of Surrey.

This demonstrates how vital it is to cross-check all index entries where practicable, before relying on the data to plot distributions or for other uses (see also RECKS in 4.2 below).

MEANING & DERIVATION AND SIMILAR SURNAMES

The two reference works primarily referred to are: - Reaney and Wilson's A Dictionary of English Surnames , which includes the date and place where they have found the earliest examples (see Appendix 3); - Hanks and Hodges' Dictionary of Surnames which also includes surnames of European origin.

Other reference works that have been examined are - McKinley's A History of British Surnames - Postles' The Surnames of Devon (a volume in the English Surnames Series, in which there is as yet no comparable volume for Dorset, Hampshire or Somerset), which does not include reference to RIGGS or any of the comparable surnames. This is despite the fact that the mapping of the 1881 surname distribution (Appendix 1) shows there were 250 persons in Devon with the surname RIDGE, almost 12% of the total occurrences of the name in Britain.

RIGGS, RIGG, RIDGE and RUDGE

The polarisation of RIGG and RIGGS contradicts the entries in the Surname Dictionaries of Reaney and Wilson and Hanks and Hodges. Neither are mentioned in McKinley or Postle.

Hanks & Hodges groups RIGG, RIGGE and RIGGES together under its entry for RIDGE stating they are northern variants of RIDGE from an Old Norse cognate. The meaning is given as "someone who lived on or by a ridge" and its etymology (the formation of a surname and the development of its meaning, i.e., its derivation) as the Middle English word rigge and the Old English word hrycg.

Reaney and Wilson groups RIGG, RIGGE and RIGGES together in a single entry. The meaning is given as "dweller by the ridge" and the etymology as the Old Norse word hryggr.

Reaney and Wilson has a separate ''stand alone" entry for RIDGE for which it gives the meaning "dweller on the ridge" and its etymology as the Old English word hrycg.

Under RIDGE, Reaney and Wilson cross-refers to its entry for RUDGE, which gives three meanings (one from the place-name Rudge found in Gloucestershire and in Shropshire and another the descriptive "red-haired").

Reaney and Wilson states the second meaning for RUDGE is from residence near a ridge, quoting as its etymology the same Old English word hrycg as it quotes for RIDGE. It continues by saying "In Middle English this became rugge, regge, rigge in different dialects. Regge does not seem to have survived. For rigge, see RIDGE. Rudge is still used for ridge in Worcestershire."

Hanks and Hodges' entry for RUDGE flags the surname as being from the West Midlands and groups together the habitation name (from the place name in Shropshire) with the topographic name from the West Midland Middle English word rugge. The mapping of the 1881 surname distribution (Appendix 1) confirms this West Midlands concentration.

McKinley only contains a passing reference to RIDGE as "a topographical surname (one derived from terms for features of the landscape, whether natural" citing RIDGE amongst other examples "or man-made). McKinley does not contain any reference to RIGGS or RIGG.

RICKS, REX, RICK, RIX and RUSH

Reaney and Wilson gives two separate etymologies for its grouping together of RICK, RICKS and RIX in a single entry under RICK, the first of which is a pet form of Rickard, a variation of Richard. The second meaning is "dweller by the rushes" quoting as its etymology the West Saxon words rixe, rexe, a metathesized form (a form where sounds or letters have become transposed in a word) of the Old English words risc, rysc 'rush', which survive as rix, rex in the dialects of Dorset, Somerset and Devon. Dr. Hey in his article above refers to this a being at variance with the distribution of RIX.

McKinley states "the first syllable of Richard is Ric, and this was used as a short form of Richard, and gave rise to a group of surnames, RICK, RICKS, RIX (though RIX or RYX is a topographic name in some cases)".

Despite quoting rexe and rex in the entry that includes RICKS, Reaney and Wilson groups REX and RECKS together separately from that entry, even though it gives the identical meaning of "dweller by the rushes", and the similar etymology of rexe, rixe, albeit here it identifies REX and RECKS as Old English rather than West Saxon.

Reaney and Wilson also has an entry for RUSH which gives its meaning as "dweller among the rushes" from the Old English word risc, 'rush', used collectively.

Hanks and Hodges' entry for RUSH, gives its first meaning as a "topographical name for someone who lived near a clump of rushes, from Middle English rush (a collective singular, Old English rysc)".

This is cross-referred to by Hanks and Hodges's entry for RIX, which is flagged as being from East Anglia. The mapping of the 1881 surname distribution (Appendix 1) confirms this East Anglia concentration. The entry gives two separate meanings for RIX, the first being that it is a variant of RICH. The second meaning (similar to Reaney and Wilson's RICKS) is a "topographic name for someone who lived on a piece of land thickly grown with rushes, from Old English (West Saxon) rixe rush (collective singular), a metathesized form of rysc".

Hanks and Hodges on the other hand groups RICK and RICKS with RICH, which it defines as a medieval given name used as a short form of Richard (Reaney and Wilson's first etymology).

Hanks and Hodges does not include REX.

All 13 occurrences of RECKS in the 1881 LDS index have proved to be transcription errors, either by the enumerator or by the indexers. They were cross-checked against the other censuses, as in the case of RIDGES in 3 above and, apart from one HICKS, the others all proved to be REEKS. The surname RECKS had therefore apparently not survived by 1881.

REAKES, REEKS and REEK

Neither Hanks and Hodge nor McKinley includes any references to REEKS, REECKS, REAKES, REAKS, or REAKES.

Reaney and Wilson confirms my grouping of REEKS, REECKS, REAKES, REAKS, and REAKES but includes them in a single entry under REEK, and excludes RICKS (4.2). It quotes the etymology of REEK as the Old English word hr?ac, meaning "dweller by the heap or stack".

Yet the map in Appendix 1 showing the distribution of REEK in 1881 demonstrates it is markedly different from the other surnames in the grouped entry which were concentrated in the West Country. REEK was concentrated in Nottinghamshire which had (in round numbers) a density of 21 times the 'norm' and 27% of the total occurrences, with Lincolnshire the next densest county and 12% of the total number. It is very similar to RICK (4.2) which was also concentrated in Nottinghamshire with a density of 34 times the 'norm' and 44% of the total occurrences, and with Lincolnshire the next densest county and 16% of the total number.