Durban

This unusual name is of French locational origin, from a place called D'urban or D'urbin in Languedoc. The family from that area are recorded heraldically before 1680. The name first appears recorded in England in the late 16th and early 17th Centuries, in the forms "Durban(n), Durbyn, Durbin". It is likely to be a French Huguenot surname, since the first influx of the continental Huguenots into England to escape religious persecutions occured during the late 16th Century. The name means "of the town or city", derived from the latin "urbs", town or city, hence "urbanus", city-dweller. The arms of the D'urbin family of Bristol are recorded as "Erminoi's on a bend gules three mullets argent". "Marye Durbin" was christened in May 1601, at St. Mary Magdaline, Old Fish Street, London. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Ann Durbann, christened. which was dated April 1599, in "Axbridge, Somerset". during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1, known as "Good Queen Bess", 1558 - 1603. 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.