How Junner the engineer got his name

November 2004

by Bill Nicolaisen

It never occurred to me when I began this column in 1993 that, having been invited to write occasional pieces on the place names of the North-East, I would one day provide two consecutive articles on personal names, but that is what is happening now, though in very different circumstances.

In September it was the gathering of Clan Davidson at Huntly that suggested the topic; this month I am responding to an enquiry about a somewhat unusual surname which has given me an opportunity to make an initial inroad into some musing about that fascinating subject – occupational surnames.

A little while ago, Alison Wright of Tavistock, Devon, contacted the Leopard regarding the history of the surname Junner (Junor, Juner, etc.) which was the maiden name of her maternal grandmother. At my request, she (Alison Wright, not her grandmother) sent me some background information about her Junner ancestors and some other Junners encountered during World War 1.

Casting her net a little wider, she pointed out that another holder of the name about whom there seems to be a bit of a mystery was Lawrence of Arabia’s wife, Sarah Junner.

She is right about Junner being an uncommon name, and we are fortunate that George F. Black, in his most informative compendium, The Surnames of Scotland, adds to his entry on Jenner, as an afterthought: “The spelling Junor occurs in Inverness”. Alison Wright’s 3x great grandfather, James Junner, a cloth weaver, was baptised in 1762 in Urray, Ross & Cromarty, and his son, John Mackenzie Junner, baptised in Urray in 1807, was said to be “a native of Dingwall”.

The name Junner did not remain confined to Easter Ross, however, for three of his sons became lawyers in Edinburgh and another was a corn merchant in Leith.

Alison has an intriguing story of an encounter by Gordon Mackenzie Junner in 1916 in World War 1 with a William Junner of Elgin, officer in the Seaforth Highlanders, and relates from her family papers another unexpected wartime meeting in 1917 with an Australian Captain N.R. Junner whose people had been in Melbourne since 1870, but had come from Ross & Cromarty.

In spite of Black’s listing of Junor / Junner as a variant of the more common name, Jenner, it would be more appropriate to think of it as a parallel development – a kind of cousin – of that name with which it shares the same origin. Somehow it got split off as a different attempt at making a strange pronunciation visible.

One only has to peruse the historical spellings listed in dictionaries to find support for this explanation. Black, for instance, lists Scottish sample spellings such as Anneys la Gynnere (1296), Alun Gynowr in Edinburgh (1392), Patrik Genour in Inverness (1452), Thomas Genor (1492), Donald Jenor (1499), William Genour in Ardmanach (1504), and John Jenour in Ardmanacht (1564).

P.H. Reaney in his Dictionary of British Surnames has the modern variants Jenner, Jenoure, Genner, Genower and Ginner, backed by early spellings similar to the Scottish ones. His references to a Richard lengignur and lenginnur (1191), a William Enginur (1202) and Robert le enguigniur (1221) point to the etymology of the name and its derivation from Old French engigneor, enginior “engineer, maker of military machines”.

In the Middle Ages this term sometimes referred to men who combined the duties of master mason and architect, but were primarily designers and builders of military machines.

From the notion of “designer” it was not a big step to a meaning such as “contriver’, a derivation of engaign “cunning, ingenuity, stratagem, device”. In the absence of more detailed information, it is difficult to say which of these designations attached to any one of the Jenner /Junner /Junor ancestors, but the fact that Gordon Mackenzie Junner founded the Institute of Royal Transport Engineers in the 1940s and was editor of Commercial Motor magazine for many years may point to someone who, however subconsciously, lived up to the meaning of his surname, the recorded spellings of which exemplify how troublesome they had been to the writers.

Naturally, this proposed etymology of the name Junner is not foolproof but, on the basis of the evidence available, appears to be the most probable.

Anyhow, there is no real harm in speculating, and I am grateful to Alison Wright for the challenge offered. It is, by the way, as appropriate for a Junner, an engineer, to become a Wright, a worker in wood, as it is for another Junner to have become the founder of the Institute of Royal Transport Engineers.

As a coda, I would like to add a reply to another enquiry addressed to: “The Professor of Scottish Place Names, Aberdeen University, Aberdeen”.

Mr A.Whiting of Welton, Lincolnshire, is interested in the surname Garryock. As he surmises, it is indeed connected with the regional name (The) Garioch (pronounced Geery) in Aberdeenshire, but in a roundabout way. George F. Black, in his entry for Garriock, informs us that the name has been known in Orkney since 1427 (Garoch) and that it also occurs there in the spellings Garyoch and Garryauche in 1576. It is also found in Shetland as Garrick.

The influence of the North-East in the Northern Isles has, of course, been extensive. The early spellings of the Aberdeenshire name (Garwyach c.1175, Garviach 1291) and its Gaelic form Gairbheach appear to indicate a derivation from Gaelic garbh “rough” or rather gairbhe “roughness”, but it has been pointed out that that derivation does not suit the terrain well.

Bill Nicolaisen, an Honorary Professor of English at the University of Aberdeen, has been involved in the study of names and more general academic teaching and research since 1951.

This is an article from the November 2004 edition of Leopard Magazine. To read much more like this every month, subscribe to Leopard Magazine.