Sex

Perhaps it is overstating the obvious to say that this interesting surname has no apparent connection with its' "modern" (medieval) popular meaning. The surname "Sex" has two possible sources of derivation, the first is from the Latin "Sextus" meaning "the Sixth born" in a family, and the name of several popes and early saints. The second derivation is from the English medieval "Sic-Smith" or "Sex-Smith" - maker of Sickles and Bill-hooks, and one of the forty three known single definitions of "A worker in Iron". Many surname holders now called - Black, White, Green, Brown, etc., were originally suffixed "Smith", whilst rather oddly, people now called "Smith" were originally "Warriors" (the word Smith translates from the Anglo-Saxon "Smitan, meaning "One who Smites"). The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Johannes Sex, which was dated August 18th 1571, (marriage to Margereta Mathewe, at St. Martins in-the-Field), during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, "Good Queen Bess", 1558 - 1603. 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.