Houndsom

This name, with variant spellings Hanson, Hansom, Hondson, Houndsom etc., is a patronymic from any of three personal bynames. These are Hound, (from the Old English "hund", a hound or dog); Hand, (from the Old English "hand" literally meaning "hand"), or Han(n), a Flemish form of John, itself coming from the Hebrew Yochanan meaning "Jehovah has favoured me with a son". One, Bonde Hund appears in the 1166 "Pipe Rolls of Norfolk", and a Richard Hand in "The Hundred Rolls of Bedfordshire", dated 1279. The patronymic forms of the three personal names emerge in the 14th Century with John Handson, (Yorkshire, 1327), William Honesone, (Staffordshire, 1332) and John Hanson, (Cumberland, 1332). The forms showing "m" replacing "n" in the final syllable are well recorded in London church registers from the mid 16th Century. On June 19th 1567, William Hansone, an infant, was christened in St. James, Garlickhithe. Mary Houndsomand and William Robinson were married in St. Mary's, Somerset, London, on April 26th 1666, and Ann Hounsum was christened in St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Westminster, on April 9th 1727. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Thomas Hounsom, (marriage to Mary Jackson), which was dated November 10th 1744, St. George's, Mayfair, London, during the reign of King George 11, "The Last Warrior King", 1727 - 1760. 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.