Cunnington

This interesting and unusual name is of Old Norse and Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a locational surname deriving from either of the places in Cambridgeshire (one of which was formerly in Huntingdonshire) called "Comington". The place in Cambridgeshire is recorded in the Saxon Charters of circa 1000 as "Cunnington", and as "Cunitone" in the Domesday Book of 1086, while the place in Huntingdonshire appears as "Cunictune" in 957, and as "Coninctune" in the Domesday Book. Both places share the same meaning and derivation, which is "the king's or chieftain's settlement", derived from the Old Norse "kunung", king, chieftain (replacing the Olde English pre 7th Century "cyning"), with the Olde English "tun", enclosure, settlement. The modern surname can be found recorded as Cunnington and Con(n)ington. The marriage of Alen Cunnington and Isabela Worship was recorded at St. Martin in the Fields, Westminster, in London, on May 30th 1642. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Robert de Conintone, which was dated 1275, in the "Hundred Rolls of Bedfordshire", during the reign of King Edward 1, known as "The Hammer of the Scots", 1272 - 1307. 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.