What's in a SURNAME?

Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" and this leads to a large number of variations of the original spelling. No surname is 'fixed'!

It is believed there are over 45,000 different English surnames.

Most surnames originated from seven types:

• Occupational: based on a job or position in society [Heard, Pfeffler (pipe player), Spicer].
• Personal characteristic: based on nicknames that described a person. They may have described a person’s size, colouring, or character trait. [Bunn (from the French word ‘bon’), White, Pococke]
• Place name: where a person was born, lived, worked, or owned land. It might be from the name of a house, farm, hamlet, town, or county.  [Freestone, Kimberley (‘leah’ is a wood), Woolley]
• Estate name: name of their holdings, castle, manor, or estate, such as Ernle or Staunton.
• Geographical feature: Some examples are Bridge, Brooks, Bush, Camp. [Hilton]
• Patronymic, matronymic, or ancestral: from a given name (male or female).  Scottish clan names make up one set of ancestral surnames.  [Craig, Dixson (‘son of’), Dyson (from the Greek female name Dionysia), Harry, McCutcheon, Robinson, William/s]
• Signifying patronage: some surnames honored a patron. Hickman was Hick’s man (Hick being a nickname for Richard), Kilpatrick was a follower of Patrick.

Many surnames have more than one possible origin:

• Barry – three possible origins. It could be from the French word ‘bari’ meaning castle; from Norman/Irish origins as the descendant of Fionnbharr; or from the Scottish locational origin from the village of Barry, Angus, meaning rough, grassy hill.
• Bray –a number of possible origins: a locational name in East Berkshire or Devonshire, from the word ‘bre’ meaning hill or from ‘Brae’ in Scotland, or from the old Gaelic ‘O’Breaghdha’ indicating a native of Begia; or a nickname from the Cornish work ‘bregh’ meaning fine or brave; 
• Carne – of Cornish origins from the Cornish word ‘carn” meaning rock. It could be a geographical feature or a place name.
• Crofts – could be a nickname, a geographical feature or a place name.
• Folland – of Norwegian origin, either after location in Norway; or geographical, for a dweller of a beach where it is difficult to land ships.
• Joyce –origin is French, but was an early Irish name.  It could be a patronymic name from ‘Iodoc’ meaning ‘lord’ or it could be a place name from the village of Josse sur Mer, Calvados, Normandy.

Surnames in England also tend to be associated with, or concentrated in, particular areas and our ancestors followed this general trend. For example, the surname Bunn was from the East Anglia area; Hollebone from East Sussex; Dyson, Freestone, Hilton, Kimberley and Woolley from the north east of England (especially Yorkshire); Carne and Heard from Cornwell and Devon.