Padmore

This interesting and unusual name is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and has two distinct possible sources. Firstly, it may be a variant form of the more familiar locational surname Patmore, from the place so called near Albury in Hertfordshire. The placename is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Patemere", and in the 1666 Pipe Rolls of the county as "Pattemera"; the name means "Patta's or Peatta's lake", derived from the Olde English pre 7th Century personal name "P(e)atta", of obscure etymology, and "mere", lake, pool. Secondly, the surname Padmore may be locational from a place so called, for example in the parish of Onibury, Shropshire, which was named from the Olde English "padde", toad, with "mor", marsh, fen, moor. Locational surnames were used especially as a means of identification by those who left their birthplace to settle elsewhere, and regional dialectal influences, as well as varying standards of literacy, often gave rise to different forms of the original name. In this instance, the modern surname forms are Patmore, Patemore, Pattemore, Padmore and Paddemore. Among the recordings of the name in Church Registers are those of the christening of Richard, son of William Padmore, in Hartlebury, Worcestershire, on September 18th 1552, and of the marriage of William Padmore and Anne Graves on February 18th 1609, at Allhallows, Hone Lane, in London. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Walter de Patemere, which was dated 1208, in the "Curia Regis Rolls of Hertfordshire", during the reign of King John, known as "Lackland", 1199 - 1216. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.