Surnames and a Theory of Social Mobility - University of Chicago ...

few genuine Romany they encountered, adopted a romanticized version of the
Gypsy lifestyle and a creation myth of their own. 37
Thus by the nineteenth century the first names of Gypsy and Traveller children
were sometimes colorful. For boys favored names allegedly included such as
Goliath, Belcher, Dangerfield, Gilderoy, Nelson, Neptune, and Vandlo. For girls we
get Britannia, Cinderella, Dotia, Gentilia, Fairnette, Freedom, Mizelli, Ocean,
Reservoir, Sinfai, and Vancy. 38 Are these timeless Gypsy names, passed down by
Romany forefathers
Not likely. For if we look at the extensive records of baptisms in England 1538-
1837 we find that almost all these supposed Gypsy and Traveller surnames appear
for the first time only in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Thus the first
recorded Cinderella baptism was in 1798, the first Goliath 1817, the first Ocean
1797, the first Freedom 1803, and the first Gilderoy 1785. This is not too surprising
for Cinderella, for example, since the French tale that is the basis of the English
version of the Cinderella story was first published in English in 1729.
The hypothesis here would thus be that the Gypsies and Travelers of England
now are mainly not descended from those of 1600, 1700 or 1800. For the normal
process of social mobility should bring those descendants closer to the social mean.
Instead there is a steady flow of people into and out of Gypsy and Traveler
communities. The more economically successful members of these communities
acquire permanent homes, and occupations more associated with the majority
population. Because they are in no way racially distinct from the rest of the
indigenous English population, and because their surnames mainly do not reveal
anything of their background, they can at any time blend into the larger society. But
at the same time as there is a flow of people out from this group, there will be a flow
in from people on the margins of society. These entrants adopt the lifestyle and
mores of the Gypsies and Travelers.
37 In line with this genetic testing suggests that the Irish Traveller community is of entirely
Irish origin. See North et al., 2000. Further this article concludes that “ these data support
that the origin of the Travellers was not a sudden event; rather a gradual formation of
populations.” There are not equivalent genetic studies of the origins of English Gypsies and
Travellers.
38 These first names are from the Romany and Traveller Family History Society. Most are in
later periods associated with surnames known to themselves contain many traveler families.
http://website.lineone.net/~rtfhs/gypsy.html