Cumberland

This is an English locational surname. It is an excellent example of a 'from' surname, in that it is rarely if ever recorded in Cumberland itself before the 19th century. Locational surnames were usually given to people after they left their original village or county or even country. It being the easiest method of identification to call a person by the name of the place from whence, he or spmetimes she, originated. The county of Cumberland is first recorded in the year 945 a.d. in the famous Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, loosely if not too accurately described as 'the first newspaper'. In those far off days the spelling was as 'Cumbraland', meaning 'the land of the Cumbrians', in fact the early Britons. The surname is much later with Thomas Cumberland being recorded in the early church registers of the diocese of Greater London in 1548, whilst Richard Cumberland, was a witness at St Brides church, Fleet Street, city of London, in 1635. The first recording of Cumberland in the county of Cumberland, was probably Peter Cumberland at Maryport, on October 19th 1878.