Dine-Hart

As with many Old English personal names such as "Alfgar", composed of the disparate elements "aelf", elf, and "gari", spear, most double-barrelled names are the result of a marriage between two families, where the resulting name has no overall meaning, but the separate elements have their own meaning and derivation. In this instance, the name Dine, is a nickname surname given to a "worthy or honourable citizen". It is a variant spelling of Dain, which derives from the Old French "digne", the Latin "dignus", and the Middle English development "d(e)igne", or "dain(e)", meaning worthy or fitting. Hart is also a nickname given to a person with some fancied resemblance to a stag, as the name derives from the Old English "heorot", stag, later becoming "hart" in the Middle English development. Robert le Dine in the Pipe Rolls, of Surrey in 1201. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Aelfric Hort, which was dated circa 1060, "The Old English Byname Register", Hampshire, during the reign of King Ethelred 1, "The Unready", 978 - 1016. 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.