Langsdon

This interesting surname is English. It is of locational origin, and is a dialectal spelling of the place name Langdon, from villages so called in the counties of Devon, Dorset, Essex, Kent and Warwickshire. The derivation of all these places is from the Old English pre 7th century word 'lang', meaning long, and 'dun', a hill. More specifically the name was probably a reference to an area of land cleared for agriculture, and perhaps culd also be topographical for somebody who lived by such a place. During the Middle Ages when it was becoming more usual for people to migrate from their villages to seek work, they would often adopt the name of their original home as their surname. This made for easy means of identification. This would also in many cases result in a wide dispersal of the surname, and the development of variant spellings. Early examples of the surname recording taken from surviving charters and registers is the marriage between Louisa Langsdon and Richard Pennyfather on December 19th 1813 at St. Mary's Lewisham, in the county of Kent. The first recorded spelling of the family name is possibly that of Hellenor Langsdon. This was dated January 26th 1613, at St. Giles Cripplegate, in the city of London, during the reign of King James 1st of England and V1 of Scotland, 1603 -1625. 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.