Spinnace

This is a very unusual surname. Recorded in the spellings of Spinage, Spinige, Spinnace and possibly others, this is an English surname, or certainly one which has been recorded in the surviving church registers of England since at least the Stuart Period. It has two possible origins. The first and most likely it that it is locational from some "lost" medieval place, although nothing like the spelling appears in any of the known gazetters covering the past three hundred years. Lost villages are not themselves, an it is estimated that at least three thousand surnames of the British Isles are known to originate from "lost" sites, of which the only public reminder in the late 20th century is the surname itself. However it is also possible that this is a medieval occupational surname for a merchant of green vegetables, from the French word "espinache", which does mean spinach, and was introduced into England after the Norman Invasion of 1066. Examples of the surname recordings taken from the church registers of the diocese of Greater London include those of Anthony Spinige, a witness at the church of St Olave's, Old Jewry, on February 1st 1651, and Catherine Spinage, the daughter of John Spinage, at St Botolphs Bishopgate, christened there on June 9th 1684, whilst William Spinnace married Mary Forbes at St Nicholas, Cole Abbey, on October 21st 1735.