Egerton

This unusual name is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a locational surname, found as Egerton or Eggerton, that derives from either of the places called Egerton in the counties of Cheshire and Kent. The former is recorded in 1260 as "Eggerton", and the latter appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Eardingtun", and in 1206 as "Ediardinton". The Cheshire placename means "Ecgheres or Ecgheard's settlement", derived from the Olde English pre 7th Century personal names "Ecghere" or "Ecgheard", with the suffix "-tun", meaning an enclosure or settlement. The Egerton in Kent derives from "Ecgheard", as above, with the Olde English suffix "ing", meaning "people or family of" and "tun" as above, the placename therefore meaning "the settlement of Ecgheard's people". Locational surnames, such as this, were usually acquired by a local landowner, or by the lord of the manor, and especially by those former inhabitants of a place who had moved to another area, and were thereafter best identified by the name of their birthplace. An early settler in the New World Colonies was William Egerton, who left London on board the "Amitie" in October 1635, bound for St. Christopher's in the Barbadoes. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of David Eggerton (witness), which was dated 1282, witness in the "Assize Court Rolls of Cheshire", 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.