Normavill

This most interesting surname is recorded in many spellings including De Normanville, Normanville, Normavill, Normavell, Nornasell, and Nornable. The origin of the name is French, the name deriving from a village in Normandy called "Normanville", translating as "the place of the Normans", a reference to the fact that "the Normans" were in fact not French, but Norse-Vikings, who instead of sailing to conquer, as in britain, actually marched from Scandanavia in the 7th century a.d., down through Northern Germany, Holland and Flanders, until they finally settled in the area of France now called Normandy. The village of "Normanville" supplied a number of followers of William, Duke of Normandy, on his conquest of England in 1066, and these people were granted extensive estates mainly in Yorkshire. The early examples of the surname recording include Isabel Normafeld of Rochdale, Lancashire in 1535, John Normanvill in the Yorkshire Wills Register of 1571, John Normavile, a witness at St Botolphs without Aldgate, London, on August 26th 1618, and Walter Nornable, a witness at the christening of his son Alfred on June 20th 1858 at Norton, Derbyshire. The coat of arms associated with the surname has the blazon of a silver field, on a fess between four barrulets, three fleur de lis of the field, and a bend sinister in blue. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Emma de Normanvill, which was dated 1195, in the pipe rolls of the county of Sussex, during the reign of King Richard 1, known as "The Lionheart", 1189 - 1199. 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.