Baythorp

Recorded as Baythorp, Baytrop, and Baythrop, this is an English surname although one with a lot of Danish-Viking input. It is locational from the village of Baythorp in the district known as Lindsey, in the county of Lincolnshire. This area was totally controlled by the Vikings fro several centuries upto the Norman Invasion of 1066, after which their power was completely broken. Nevertheless most places in East Anglia have some identity with Scandanavia. The place name is believed to translate as 'by the thorp', a thorp or in Olde Danish 'torp' meaning an outlying farm or settlement some three miles from the main farm or settlement, although another possibility as Bagga's thorp, with Bagga being an early personal name. Curiously the village itself is not recorded in the Dictionary of English Place Names. This may be because it was 'diminished' almost to the point of extinction in the 17th or 18th centuries. This may have been because of changes to agricultural practices, or to land drainage which totally changed the social structure of the region, or even the great plagues, which caused severe damage to the population. One of the few examples of the surname recording in Lincolnshire is that of William Baythorp at Honington, on March 16th 1759, when his son Thomas was christened.