Note 80 — Chapter I · PATRONYMIC SURNAMES. (continued 2)

Dean Stanley seems to have the impression that this custom was confined to the pilgrims of Italy and Spain. In his Sinai and Palestine, page 333, he says: ‘The name of the river has in Italy and Spain, by a natural association, been turned into a common Christian name for children at the hour of baptism, which served to connect them with it.’ Judging by existing traces merely, I doubt whether the practice was quite so familiar in those countries as our own.