Everton

This long-established name is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a locational surname deriving from any one of the places called Everton: in Bedfordshire, near Biggleswade; in Lancashire, now forming a north-eastern district of Liverpool; and in Nottinghamshire, near Bawtry. The place in Bedfordshire is recorded as "Euretone" in the Domesday Book of 1086, as is the place in Nottinghamshire, while Everton in Lancashire appears as "Evretona" in Early Lancashire Charters of 1094. These places share the same meaning and derivation, which is "the boar farm", from the Olde English pre 7th Century "eofor", boar, with "tun", settlement, homestead, enclosure. Locational surnames, such as this, were acquired by local landowners, and 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. Examples of the name from Church Registers include: the marriage of William Everton and Grissell Massone at St. Olave's, Old Jewry, London, on January 20th 1571, and the christening of Phillip, son of John Everton, at Holy Trinity, Chester, in Cheshire, on July 30th 1607. A Coat of Arms granted to a family of the name depicts a black stork, beaked gold, on a silver shield. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Alured de Euerton, which was dated 1212, in the "Hundred Rolls of Cambridgeshire", during the reign of King John, known as "Lackland", 1199 - 1216. 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.