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Monday 26 March 2007

Origin of the name

Dr A B Cottle
Department of English
University
3/5 Woodland Road
BRISTOL BS8 1TB

Saturday 9.xi.1985

Dear Mr Calladine
Your name, despite all the – n – spellings in Kenderdine, Canerdyne, Canwardyne, Kenwardine (I should think Kenworthy is irrelevant), must be from the Cheshire locality now called CARDEN, between Chester & Malpas, but formerly CARWARDINE “enclosure (O.E. worđign) at a rock (O.E. carr)”. Spellings start with Kauerthin 1230, then Kawrdin, Caworthin 1300, Cawardyn 1302, down to Carwarden 1775. The first disyllable recorded is Caeden 1462, Cairden 1489 – but surnames had been fossilized long before this. These dates, of course, all refer to the placename. The present Carwardine family (I have known one) vary in their pronunciation of themselves, as ‘kɑ:wadain & kæradai:n (sort of “cárradeen”); certainly, the change from the liquid r to the liquid Ɩ is very slight (as any Chinese or Japanese will tell you!).
Thank you for the rare gift of a stamp.
Yours sincerely,
Basil Cottle

[The above manuscript letter was received by Vic Calladine from Basil Cottle. The phonetic characters he used have been transcribed using Lucida Sans Unicode, a close approximation to IPA.]

Dr Basil Cottle was a Lecturer in English at the University of Bristol and author of The Penguin Dictionary of Surnames, 1967

1 comment:

Rob said...

Hi, I couldn't help but notice the surname in your post, Carwardine, as it is my surname. I come from Worcestershire, but have now moved to Florida USA, do you have any more information regarding the Carwardine family, especially regarding it's origins.

Many Thanks
Robert Carwardine

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