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Start :: Cornwall24 Discussion :: Cornish Genealogy, Ancestors and Family :: Harris a Cornish or English surname?
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	Harris a Cornish or English surname?
AngusHarris	Posted: 01.08.2006, 19:26
registered: Aug. 2006 Posts: 8 Status: offline last visit: 17.02.07	Hello, I was just wondering if anyone might tell me how common Harris is in Cornwall, and whether it is a Cornish surname or an English one? Thanks in advance, Angus


Mike	Posted: 01.08.2006, 19:40
registered: Jul. 2004 Posts: 2692 Status: offline last visit: 30.11.08	Hi Angus, the surname Harris is most prevalent in West Cornwall and South Wales. It is also seen a lot in East Cornwall, Devon and Somerset: http://www.spatial-literacy.org/UCLnames/default.aspx


AngusHarris	Posted: 01.08.2006, 19:54
registered: Aug. 2006 Posts: 8 Status: offline last visit: 17.02.07	"Mike"Hi Angus, the surname Harris is most prevalent in West Cornwall and South Wales. It is also seen a lot in East Cornwall, Devon and Somerset: http://www.spatial-literacy.org/UCLnames/default.aspx Thank you for that, a very useful site indeed!! You don't know whether the name is considered an English one, or a Cornish one at all do you? Though (going on the distribution map) given its preponderance in far west Cornwall and neighbouring Wales it seems reasonable that it is more Briton in origin (or Celtic/Brythonic/Whatever) than English. I think our Harris name comes from Camborne...


FlammNew	Posted: 01.08.2006, 20:16
registered: Mar. 2006 Posts: 1814 Status: offline last visit: 27.03.08	It's English - "Son of Harry" if memory serves - though as Cornish people sometimes took the names of their English Lords, it doesn't mean Harrises are necessarily ethnically English! Whereabouts are your Harrises from? [edit] Oops, sorry, didn't see you said Camborne.


AngusHarris	Posted: 02.08.2006, 02:41
registered: Aug. 2006 Posts: 8 Status: offline last visit: 17.02.07	"FlammNew"It's English - "Son of Harry" if memory serves - though as Cornish people sometimes took the names of their English Lords, it doesn't mean Harrises are necessarily ethnically English! Whereabouts are your Harrises from? [edit] Oops, sorry, didn't see you said Camborne. Yes, the reading I have done on the name Harris tells me that it is a bit of a blurry one. Both assumed by resident Cornish and brought into Cornwall by English, that is why I asked here hoping people in situ in Cornwall might inform me what the general consensus was on the name... It is indeed common across the whole south of the blessed isle, but the fact that the emphasis in its concentration is overwhelmingly in Wales and Cornwall seems to imply to me that it is more of a "Celtic" (whatever that word means) surname I think the Harrises here in Australia came mostly from Camborne and other mining towns


marhak	Posted: 02.08.2006, 08:02
registered: Jun. 2006 Posts: 4059 Status: offline last visit: 01.12.08	According to the Penguin Dictionary of Surnames, Harris is (as Flamm says), "son of Harry", 26th commonest surname in England and Wales in 1853, 17th in USA in 1939. Family name of the Earls of Malmesbury. Harry is a form of Henry which is, apparently, Normanised Germanic, meaning "home rule" (really), so it isn't Celtic. The famous Harris family associated with Kenegie (some of whom are still said to haunt the place) were centred at Hayne, Devon, before acquiring Kenegie (up behind Gulval, Pz) from the Arundells.


FlammNew	Posted: 02.08.2006, 08:54
registered: Mar. 2006 Posts: 1814 Status: offline last visit: 27.03.08	There are other English Cornish surnames like "Johns", "Williams" etc formed in the same way as "Harris". I've actually got a distant ancestor called "John John" which must have been confusing! Oh, and distant relations called Harris in St Ives in the 1800s.


porthia1947	Posted: 06.08.2006, 02:06
registered: Apr. 2005 Posts: 736 Status: offline last visit: 25.11.08	You might want to read "The Cornish Family" by Dr. Bernard Deacon www.cornwalledi..._family.html There's a summary of the content at www.cornwallins..._family.html While the name Harris is of English origin someone called Harris could be in terms of ancestry, as or more Cornish than someone called Trelawney. Surnames such as Thomas, Williams, Johns and Harris etc are considered Cornish as there are so many Cornish people with these names.

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