Burren

This unusual name is a variant of the more frequently found surname "Byron" or "Byrom". It can be either locational or topographical in origin, both sources sharing derivation and therefore meaning i.e. "the cattle sheds". The derivation is from the Old English pre 7th Century "byrum", from "byre", a barn or byre. The surname can therefore mean either "dweller at the cattles byres" or it can be an occupational name of one who worked there a "cowman". The placenamne "Byram" in West Yorkshire (first recorded as "Byrum" in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles of c.1030) also means "place of the cattle sheds". In the modern idiom, the surname can be found as "Byron, Byram, Biron, Burren, Byran and Biram". Mary Burren was christened on the 20th February 1644 at Lavenham, Suffolk. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Roger de Birum (witness). which was dated 1240, The Fines Court Rolls, Yorkshire. during the reign of King Henry III, The Frenchman, 1216 - 1272. 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.