last name + major

   In the nineteenth century, when large families were more common than they are now, it sometimes happened that up to four brothers were in attendance at the same school at the same time. At public schools, such as Eton, where the boys were addressed by their last names, it became customary to distinguish such brothers by adding ‘maximus’, ‘major’, ‘minor’, and ‘minimus’ to their names. Pedantic schoolmasters were then likely to address them as Smith major, Peacock minimus, etc. Examples of such usage occur in Dandelion Days, by Henry Williamson, set not at Eton but in one of the many schools which imitated this practice. Amongst themselves boys often used an abbreviated form of the suffix. ‘I say, Templeton mi, your brother’s fallen for a skirt’ is addressed to a Templeton minimus in Tamahine, by Thelma Niklaus. An alternative system used in some schools involved the use of ‘primus’, ‘secundus’, ‘tertius’, etc., after the last name (Latin ‘first’, ‘second’, ‘third’). There were also schools which mixed these two systems, using a set such as ‘major’, ‘minor’, ‘tertius’. In modern times it is unusual for there to be more than two brothers at school together - major and minor - and first names have tended to replace last names in many quarters.