Pagan

This name derives from the personal name "Pagen", popularly Paine or Payn(e). It comes from the Old French "paien" or Latin "paganus" originally meaning "a villager or rustic", and later a heathen. As a personal name it is first recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086, Edmund filius (son of) Pagen. Later, one Reginoldus filius Pain appears in the Knights' Templars Records of 1185. The forename Payn is recorded in 1268. The surname is probably always patronymic and in the modern idiom, it has fourteen spelling variations, including Paine(e), Pane(s), Payne(s), Pagan, Pagon and Fitzpayn. The name is recorded in Barbados as early as 1678, when, on August 5th, one Susanna Pain, the daughter of Robert and Elisabeth Pain, was baptised in the parish of St. Michael's, in the parish register.The Coat of Arms most associated with the family was granted on 12th January 1586 and has the blazon of a gold shield, on a bend engrailed between two cotises sable, three golden heraldic roses. The crest being a demi ostrich holding in the beak a key. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of John Pane, which was dated 1190, in the "Pipe Rolls of Worcestershire", during the reign of King Richard 1, known as "The Lionheart", 1189 - 1199. 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.