Gidden

This unusual name is one of the variant forms of the locational surname "Gidding(s)", or "Gedding(s)", of Anglo-Saxon origin and deriving from the places so called in Huntingdonshire (now Cambridgeshire) and in Suffolk, respectively. The placenames are both recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Ged(d)inge", and share the same meaning and derivation, which is "the place of Gydda's people", derived from the Old English pre 7th Century personal name "Gydda", with the Old English suffix "ingas", meaning "people - family of". Locational surnames were given particularly to those former inhabitants of a place who moved to live in another area. There are a variety of modern surnames generated from the same source of "Gidding", among them "Gidden(s), Giddins, Giddon(s), Gittens and Gittings". On December 13th 1640, Thomas, son of Thomas and Ann Giddens was christened at Abington Pigotts, Cambridge and Elizabeth, daughter of James and Mercy Giddens who was christened on August 11th 1683, at St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate, London. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of John de Geddingge, which was dated 1273, in the "Suffolk Hundred Rolls", 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.