3. The meaning of _Le Chaloneur_. It is evidently the same as our English name _Challoner_, which Cole admits into his dictionary as "the name of an ancient family." It means in old French either the _boatman_, from "chalun," a boat; or a _fisherman_, from "chalon," a kind of net. As we have in English _Fisher_, in modern French _Lepécheur_, in Italian _Piscatory_.
4. _Le Cayser._ The same as _Cæsar_, a name now, we believe, extinct amongst us, but preserved in our literature by Lord Clarendon and Pope. I suspect that it was of a class of _fancy_ names which I shall mention presently.
5. Baird and Aird are Scotch names, and probably local. Jameson (whose authority is very low with me) derives _Baird_ from _bard_, and _Aird_ he does not mention. _Aird_ or _ard_ is Celtic for _high_, and is a common local denomination in Scotland and Ireland.
6. For the rest of the out-of-the-way names MR. LOWER mentions I can give no more explanation than of many thousands others which have been probably produced by some peculiarity or incidents in the first nominee, or some corruption of a better known name. As to this class of fancy names, I can give MR. LOWER a hint that may be of use to him. It used to be the custom at the old Foundling Hospital and in all parish workhouses, to give the children what I venture to call _fancy_ names. I remember being shocked at the heterogeneous nomenclature that was outpoured on fifty or a hundred poor babes at the Foundling. I happened once to accompany a noble lady--the daughter of a great sea officer--to one of these Foundling christenings, when the names of Howe, Duncan, Jervis, and Nelson, were in fashion, and they were each given to half-a-dozen children; and while this was going on, my fair and noble friend whispered me, "What a shame! all these poor little creatures will grow up to be our cousins." Sometimes the names given were grotesque, such as ought not to have been permitted; and sometimes the children brought into the hospital, pinned to their clothes, names in which I suppose the poor mother may have had a meaning, but which seemed to us fantastical and extravagant.
Illegitimacy is a considerable source of strange names. I could give some droll instances. Corruption is another; there are half-a-dozen names of labourers in my village which are mere corruptions by vulgar pronunciation of some of the noblest names of the peerage.