Sandwith

Recorded as Sandwich, Sandwick, Sandwitch and Sandwith, these are English locational surnames of great similarity. Sandwich and its variants comes from the town of Sandwich in Kent. This is first recorded as Sondwic in the year 851 .a.d., making it one of the earliest places of which written records survive anywhere in the world. The meaning is the dairy farm (wic) on the sandy land, or just possibly the place of the market. Wic almost always means dairy farm, but on occasion has been found to be used with other meanings to suit local conditions. Sandwith is a village in Cumbria. It was first recorded in the year 1280 as Sandwath, with a wath being a development of the ancient Viking word "vao" meaning a ford, to give us the shallow sandy crossing place. Locational surnames such as these were usually "from" names. That is to say surnames given to people after they left their original homes, to move somewhere else. This was often to the city of London, probably the only city that the nameholders would have known. As a result both villages (as surnames) are well recorded in the surviving church registers of London with examples such as William Sandwich. He married Jone Cox at St Dunstans Stepney, on June 24th 1584, and Thomas Sandwith, a christening witness at St Mary Magdalene on October 20th 1637.