Binfield

This name is of English locational origin from a place thus called in Berkshire or from Binfield (heath) in Oxfordshire. The latter was first recorded as Beonan feld in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, dated 963, and as Benetfeld in the 1188 Pipe Rolls of Oxfordshire. The former appears as Benetfeld in the 1176 Pipe Rolls of Berkshire. Both places are so named from the old English pre 7th Century "beonet", related to the old German "binut", meaning "bent-grass", plus the old English "feld", open country or land free from wood. The surname is particulary well recorded in church registers of Berkshire, London and Oxfordshire from the mid 16th Century. On January 27th 1582 Alice Binfield and Richard Hall were married in Burghfield, Berkshire. Robert Bynfield married an Allyce Carter in Sunbury on Thames, London on October 31st 1585, and on October 10th 1596 the marriage of Christopher Binfield and Catherine Lovejoye took place in Rotherfiled Peppard, Oxfordshire. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Richard Bynfyld, (marriage to Joan Thomsone), which was dated July 6th 1562, St. Marys, Reading, Berkshire, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1, "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.