Curnow Returns to Haunt His Former Club as 2026 AFL Season Kicks Off

#AFL #GoSwans #CarltonFC #OpeningRound #Curnow #AusNews

https://thedailyperspective.org/article/2026-03-04-curnow-returns-to-haunt-his-former-club-as-2026-afl-season-kicks-off-39fb1dff

Sydney and Carlton Meet Over Charlie Curnow Trade Talks, Aaron Francis Linked to GWS

Sydney and Carlton recently held discussions about potential trades for key player Charlie Curnow. Although Curnow is contracted until 2029, both the Swans and other clubs like the Cats and Suns have expressed interest in the dual Coleman medalist. However, there has been no significant progress or ... [More info]

Check out the surname dictionaries, even the mammoth Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland, and you’ll find Curnow classed as a locative name, a form of Kernow, the Cornish for Cornwall and a surname presumably given to a Cornishman. But this simple and apparently clearcut explanation may not be the right one.

First, why would someone be named in the Cornish language as a Cornishman when they lived among other folk, virtually all of whom would also have been Cornish? It doesn’t seem to be a very effective discriminator.

Second, the historical pattern of the forerunners of the name looks curious. The modern distribution of the surname, concentrated on the west, is misleading. The spelling Curnow began to appear from the 1580s, at first on the Lizard. Before that time the name was usually Cornow or sometimes in the east of Cornwall Cornew. Significantly, in the early 1500s it was found scattered across the land and was not confined to the Cornish-speaking districts, a surprising distribution given its supposed emergence among Cornish-speakers.

Even Robert Morton Nance, the father of the Cornish linguistic revival, had his doubts, describing the origin of Curnow as ‘less clear’ than might be thought. He suggested a Cornish language nickname from the Cornish corn, meaning horn, although that would hardly explain the presence of the name in east Cornwall in the 1500s.

Curnow comes in as equal number 68 in our list of the most frequent surnames in Cornwall in 1861. Here’s the rest down to number 69. You can check out the early maps of these here.

Further details of most of these names can also be found in my The Surnames of Cornwall.

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https://bernarddeacon.com/2024/10/08/curnow-kernow-when-the-obvious-meaning-may-not-be-so/

#Curnow #familyHistory #surnames

Part of The Hurlers stone circle on Bodmin Moor, Cornwall, with an old mine engine house in the background.

#StandingStoneSunday #TheHurlers #Minions #BodminMoor #Cornwall #Curnow #Megaliths #StoneCircle #Infrared #LumixGH3 #Photography #BlackAndWhite #BWPhotography #Toned