Fitt

Recorded as Fitt, Fittes, Fitts, and Fitkin, this is a surname of English origins, although one also recorded in Northern Ireland. There are several possible explantions as to its origin and meaning. The most likely is that it is or rather was a medieval nickname for a "fit" person from the pre 7th century Olde English word "fidd". This was somebody regarded as being rather pleasant, and it is said that the name is from this source is most associated with the East Anglia region. Secondly it could be locational from a place called Fitz in the county of Shropshire. This village was first recorded in the famous Domesday Book of 1086 as "Witesot", as "Fittesho" in 1194, and then as "Fittes" in the Charter Rolls of 1285. The placename is believed to translate as the fighting field, from an Olde English word "fitta", and is possibly a reference to an unrecorded battle, but more likely to a place where sport or jousting took place. An alternative suggestion is that it may be from a pre 7th Century personal name "Fita", with at one time a second element of "hoh", meaning a spur of land. Early examples of the surname recordings taken from surviving church registers include the christening of Rebecca Fitt, at Swanton Morley, Norfolk, on August 22nd 1568, the marriage of Anthony Fittes and Margaret Greene on February 10th 1623 at St. Giles Cripplegate, in the city of London, and the christening of Mary Fitts, the daughter of William and Sarah Fitts on March 28th 1824, at Brinklow in Warwickshire. The first recorded spelling of the family name may be that of Thomas Fidekyn of Buckinghamshire in the 20th year of the reign of King Edward 111 of England or 1347. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.