FitzGeorge

This is one of the rarest of the group of surnames prefixed with the Norman word 'Fitz' meaning 'son of'. Popular etymology would have the world believe that names commencing with 'Fitz' are either 'royal' in origin and usually directly associated with royal mistresses, or that the name is Irish, or often both! Like most well founded myths there is an element of truth. This surname is most certainly royal, in that certainly some of the modern nameholders do descend from the three sons of the 2nd Duke of Cambridge, who seems to have adopted FitzGeorge as his surname. His father, the 1st Duke, born in 1774, was the seventh son of King George 111rd of England, and therefore a second cousin to Queen Victoria. The 2nd Duke who married a commoner Sarah Fairbrother, commanded one of the British Armies in the Crimean War (1854 - 56), and the three sons themselves, the first George FitzGeorge, being christened on August 27th 1843, became distinguished officers in their own right. They were all recorded in the register of their christenings as 'Princes of England'. However there is still a mystery about the surname. It does not seem to have been recorded much earlier than the 'royal' recordings. The first in the church registers of Greater London appears to be that of a William FitzGeorge, whose son John Holerton FitzGeorge was christened on May 6th 1783, at St Pauls church, Covent Garden. As surnames came into general use at least three centuries before this date, either this surname has been 'hiding' somewhere else, or it was a 'creation' for unknown reasons.