What’s in a name? A clue to stormy weather ahead
A FEW years ago, while exploring the North Yorkshire coastal town of Robin Hood’s Bay, I came across an unusual surname which has fascinated me ever since.
Among the inhabitants of the town is a family bearing the surname Storm, who can trace their roots back centuries.
Indeed, according to local historians, in one of the first recorded references to the town around 1540 – when the village comprised 50 or so cottages gathered around the shore – the chief tenant was a Matthew Storm. His descendants still live on.
The reason why I find this so interesting – as anybody who has visited the area on a blustery weekend can attest – is that it is such a fitting name for a town perched on the edge of the North Sea battered by the elements and whose streets carry the ever present tang of salt spray.
I wonder what particular event caused the origins of the name. A daring ocean rescue? Or perhaps, more prosaically, a thatched roof being snatched away by the wind one wild evening?
I have been racking my brains for other weather-related surnames and it seems to me – though I stand to be corrected – that they tend to centre around the darker more dramatic months.
The national roll call contains plenty of occurrences of Frost, Snow, Flood, even Fogg. But where are the names of summer and spring?
I like to think this shows even as we complain about the turbulent British weather it is still somehow part of us. We are a people shaped by our climate.
This weekend leaves no doubt that we have left the warmer months long behind. Today expect heavy rain for many and blustery gusts of wind, especially in coastal areas. In parts of the country, the overnight temperature could sink as low as 3C.
Such is the drama of autumn on our wind-rushed islands; a place that the Storms call home.