Campo

Recorded in the spellings of Camp, Campo, Campes, and Campos, this unusual surname is English, French, Spanish and Portuguese, but of Roman (Latin) origins from the 1st century a.d. It is topographical in translation and literally means the countryside. However logically, when used as a name, it is more likely to have originally been a descriptive nickname either for a 'country boy' or more probably somebody who moved from the countryside to a town. Usually when a person moved from one village to another, in many parts of the world they would be called by their new neighbours by the name of their former village, there is in fact a village in England called 'Campes'. However in some cases a more general description applied and this may be one of them. There is a second possibility that as the name has Roman origins derived from the word 'campus', meaning a fortified place, it is possible that as the Romans occupied all of Europe for several centuries, the surname may relate to a former Roman site. Examples of the surname recording include Martin del Campo on July 4th 1547 at Asuncion, Mexico, Barbosa Campo at the same place on April 26th 1671, whilst rather later Albino Campos was a witness at the christening of his daughter Ignacia, at Los Angeles, California, on February 22nd 1913. The coat of arms has the blazon of a gold field, a blue fesse, in chief a black eagle displayed. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Felicia de Campo, which was dated 1273, the Hundred Rolls of the county of Cambridge, England, during the reign of King Edward 1st, known as 'The hamer 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.