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Help[Surname] Re: Hodgkin
in reply to a message by Marc
True... Actually I gave that answer from memory... My memory failed me however...
The page says about Hodkin that it is a "nickname from Middle English hodge ‘hog’, which occurs as a dialect variant of hogge" I guess the text puts "hog" in single inverted commas because the content was a translation, therefore I guess they meant "hog" in contemporary English, so I say "pig" to avoid misunderstanding... Really the grammar there is very confusing, would they use inverted quotation marks if they didn't meant the role of "hog" there is as a translation of "hodge"?
The possibility of it having the meaning of "to shake" is something I derived from my knowledge of the way folk etymology and the like can influence spelling (for instance Veronica is the name Berenice influenced by the words "vero icon" or viceversa) and the fact that the surname Hodge could by a hypocorism of Roger influenced by the word "hodge" as in "hodgepodge" which is derived from hocher "to shake" from a Germanic source (cf. M.H.G. hotzen "shake") as the Online Etymology Dictionary says. I may be wrong to make this samblind guess but I don't know a better explanation for Roger devolving into Hodge... Hroðgar is the oldest form of Roger and it may be written similiar to Hodge but it certainly doesn't seem to have a similiar pronunciation and pronunciation is more important than spelling when influencing etymological changes... And the R and the H rarely ever (if ever) swap places on Indoeuropean words (F and V, V and U and W, F and H, B and P, M and N and other letters, but never have I seen H and R swap places)
The page says about Hodkin that it is a "nickname from Middle English hodge ‘hog’, which occurs as a dialect variant of hogge" I guess the text puts "hog" in single inverted commas because the content was a translation, therefore I guess they meant "hog" in contemporary English, so I say "pig" to avoid misunderstanding... Really the grammar there is very confusing, would they use inverted quotation marks if they didn't meant the role of "hog" there is as a translation of "hodge"?
The possibility of it having the meaning of "to shake" is something I derived from my knowledge of the way folk etymology and the like can influence spelling (for instance Veronica is the name Berenice influenced by the words "vero icon" or viceversa) and the fact that the surname Hodge could by a hypocorism of Roger influenced by the word "hodge" as in "hodgepodge" which is derived from hocher "to shake" from a Germanic source (cf. M.H.G. hotzen "shake") as the Online Etymology Dictionary says. I may be wrong to make this samblind guess but I don't know a better explanation for Roger devolving into Hodge... Hroðgar is the oldest form of Roger and it may be written similiar to Hodge but it certainly doesn't seem to have a similiar pronunciation and pronunciation is more important than spelling when influencing etymological changes... And the R and the H rarely ever (if ever) swap places on Indoeuropean words (F and V, V and U and W, F and H, B and P, M and N and other letters, but never have I seen H and R swap places)
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