Tagg

This unusual name is a baptismal nickname of endearment. It is of early medieval English origin, and is a derived form of the Ancient Greek "Hagnos", meaning "pure or chaste", or the Latin (Roman) "Agnus", the lamb. Quite how these forms developed is one of the dialectal mysteries of the early surname period from the 11th to the 14th Centuries; however it would seem that there is a (Norman) French connection, "Taggon", a diminutive which translates as "Little Tagg", being recorded in France in the 13th Century. The name form was found as Tagg, Taggy and Taggie, the latter two being English Northern diminutives. The name recordings include; Richard Tagge, in the Howden Poll Tax Rolls for Yorkshire in 1379, and Robert Tag, in the same records. Later recordings were Abygail Tagg who married John Preston, at St. James' Church, Clerkenwell, on May 4th 1668. whilst earlier in Yorkshire, Robert Tagg married Ann Moore, at Braithwell, on November 6th 1586, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1, "Good Queen Bess", 1558 - 1603. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Richard Tagg, which was dated 1273, in the "Oxfordshire Hundred Rolls", during the reign of King Edward 1, known as "The Hammer of the Scots", 1272 - 1307. 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.