REVIEWS

THE CONCISE OXFORD DICTIONARY OF FAMILY NAMES IN BRITAIN

 Edited by Harry Parkin

Oxford University Press, 1,040 pages, £80

Although it’s labelled Concise, this hefty dictionary still contains more than 1,000 pages and over 43,000 names. Based on the considerable work that went into the four-volume Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland (2016), this more manageable version is also more affordable, although far from inexpensive.

For this shorter volume some of the Irish names in the original have been excised (a separate dictionary for Ireland is forthcoming), as well as some of the rarest names that are now close to extinction.

What is