Kitcatt

This very interesting and unusual name is almost certainly locational, and has absolutely nothing to do with either cats or chocolate! It derives from the Olde English "Cyte" - a pre 8th century word which describes 'the kite, ' a bird of prey of the 'genera milvus', then found in great numbers in Britain. Like 'hawk' as an example, these words came to be firstly personal and baptismal names, and then from the 12th century onwards, - surnames. The suffix in this case is or rather was, 'cott' again an old English word for a dwelling place of some substance. In later medieval times it came to mean the opposite, whilst now 'cott(age)' is a romantic description of a small village house. A secondary possible origin is that 'Kit' is in this instance a pet form of Christopher, a baptismal name introduced from the Holy Land during the Crusades. What is not known is the site of 'Kit Cott', and it is probable that it is one of the five thousand or so 'lost' medieval villages, whose only record today is the surname. An ancient cromlech called 'Kits Coty' exists near Maidstone in Kent, and this maybe the source of the name. Recordings of the name are quite rare, examples include Cicely Kitcatt who married Jonathon Butter at Andover, Hants, on September 10th 1799, and George Kittcatt, (the name appears in several spellings), at the church of St Anne and St Agnes, London, on January 1st 1807. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of David Kitcat, which was dated February 14th 1725, a witness at St Nicholas Olave, London, during the reign of King George 1, known as 'German George', 1715 - 1727. 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.