Carnish meaning | Last name Carnish origin

The lastname Carnish is form of Corns. A nickname of Cornelius.

Lastname is the variant form of the Cornish. One who came from Cornwall, i.e., the Welsh in Cornavia, a county in England.

The surname Carnish is form of the Corns. See under Cowhorn - The Hundred Rolls have the similar name, Corndeboef (corn-ile bouf) and Corns and Cornu still exist as surnames. Perhaps applied originally to one who blew a cow's horn.

The family name is a variation of Cornish. Belonging to Cornwall applied originally to one who had removed from that to another county. A family so called at St. Issey in Cornwall, "originally descended from one William Cornish, who settled here temp. Queen Mary, a Welshman."

The local surnames of Cornwall present some marked peculiarities, which render it convenient to treat of a large body of them in one article. In most of the countries and districts where the Celtic dialects prevail, or have prevailed, the family names are principally of the patronymical class—the son or descendant having assumed the name of the father or ancestor with some prefix. For instance, most of the Gaelic surnames were personal names compounded with Mac; the Irish with O'; the Welsh with Ap or Ab. In Cornwall, however, the names are principally of the local sort, and as the names of places in that county are generally derived from Celtic roots, possessing, as to the first syllable at least, a generic meaning, it has be come proverbial that,
"By Tre, Pol, and Pen,
Ye shall know the Cornish-men."
while a less known and more comprehensive distich with more truth affirms that-
"By Tre, Ros, Pol, Lan, Caer, and Pen,
You may know the most of Cornishmen."

TRE is equivalent to the Anglo-Saxon tun, a town, or enclosure; Ros to heath, or unenclosed ground; Pol, to pool; LAN, to church; CAER or CAR, to a fortified place; and PEx, to a headland. In Breton local names and surnames, the same prefixes occur, though "pol" is written poul, and "car," or ker. In Walesthere are likewise caer many," place- names with these syllables, with modified orthographies and modified significations—Tre, Rhos, Pwll, Llan, Caer, and Pen; but these with rare exceptions have not given names to families. In Scotland, Ros, Caer, and perhaps some of the others, occur in the same sense; and also in Ireland, but as these arebut rarely, if at all, found as surnames, they belong rather to topographical than to family nomenclature. In the following lists I have arranged such Cornish sur names as have occurred to me en masse, reserving such elucidations as seem necessary for their particular and proper places in the alphabetical order of the work.