Moorfield

Recorded in a wide range of spellings including Marfield, Morfield, Morefield, Moorfield, Morrifield, and Marshfield, this is an English surname. It is locational and originates from a place or places which may have had one of the spellings shown in the surviving surnames. There are various places called Moorfields in the counties of Yorkshire, Somerset, Hereford and London, of which the latter, which now forms part of the borough of Shoreditch, in the city of London, is the most likely. The name means "the open county suitable for agriculture (feld) by the moor or morass. Locational surnames are by their nature usually "from" names. That is to say names given to people as easy identification, after they left their original homes and moved somewhere else. Spelling being at best erratic and local dialects very thick, soon lead to the development of "sounds like" spellings. In this case examples of the surame recording in the surviving registers of the diocese of Greater London include Susan Morefield who married James Gathercole at St Dunstans in the East, Stepney, on June 23nd 1611, and Thomas Moorfeild, whose son William, was christened at St Giles Cripplegate, on June 28th 1677.