Coast

This interesting surname recorded in many spelling forms including Coast and Coaster (England), Costa, Coste, and Cote (Italy & France), Costa & Dacosta (Spain & Portugal), Lacoste, Delacoste, Delacote (France), and many other spellings, is usually of Roman (Latin) origins, but in England may be from the pre 7th century word 'cott'. However spelt and from whatever country, the surname is always residential. It may describe either a person who lived at one of the many places called Cott, Cote or Coste, found throughout Europe, or in England it may have meant someone who lived at a 'cott'. This was a house, situated by itself, with four acres of land sufficient to feed a family, in the modern parlance, a cottage. Otherwise both in England and in the continent of Europe it may describe someone who lived at 'a cote or coast'. The original translation from the Latin 'costa' means a rib or side, but as a place word, and hence the later surname, it is used in a transferred sense. Early examples of recordings taken from surviving registers of the 18th century and earlier include: Alice Coast, who married Henry Orton at the famous chuuch of St Dunstans in the east, Stepney, London, on August 27th 1609, Elizabeth Coaster who married William Richards at St Botolphs Bishopgate, on February 21st 1632, and Elizabeth, daughter of Elizabeth and Benjamin Dacosta, who was christened on September 2nd 1739, at the church St. Anne and St. Agnes, London.