Berrington

This unusual name is of Anglo-Saxon origin and is a locational surname from any one of the places called Berrington in Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire. The two last are both recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Beritune", while the places in Gloucestershire and Herefordshire are recorded as "Berinton" in 1205 and as "Beriton" in 1236 respectively. The name means "the village or settlement belonging to the fort", from the Olde English pre 7th Century "byr(i)g", a fortified place, fort, often a reference to a Roman or other pre-English fort, with "tun" a settlement or village. One Thomas Berrington of Berkshire is recorded in the Register of the University of Oxford in 1575. Joan Berrington was married to Richard Knott in September 1626 at Cleobury Mortimer, Shropshire. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of George Berington, christened, which was dated 29th April 1577, Yorkhill, Herefordshire, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, 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.