Lorden

Recorded as Lordan, Lorden, Lordon, Lordin, Lording, Lordinge, and originally it would seem Lordynge, this is an English surname, although sometimes fused or confused with the French Huguenot name Lourdin, which it seems to have absorbed. It is clearly locational and presumably from one of the several places in England whose name commences with the prefix Lord. These include Lords Bridge near Cambridge, Lordshill in Shropshire, Lords Island in Cumberland, but our choice would be Lordine Court or Lordington, both in the county of Sussex. Neither place appears to have anything to do with nobility, they are developments of the pre 7th century tribal name Leofred, and essentially translate as the place of the Leofred people. However this is not proven, and it may be that this surname derives, as do some three thousand others, from a "lost" medieval village, of which the only reminder in the 21st century is the surviving surname in its varied spellings. Early examples of the surname recordings taken from registers of Greater London include Gatheridge Lordynge, which must have been a mouthful for his playmates, christened at Allhallows, Bread Street, in the city of London, on April 30th 1555, Margaret Lording christened at St James Clerkenwell, on May 24th 1600, and Isaac Lorden, a christening witness at St Mathews Bethnal Green, on May 2nd 1788.