Clapton

This interesting name is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a locational surname deriving from any one of the places called "Clapton" or "Clopton", in the counties of Berkshire, Cambridgeshire, Gloucestershire, Middlesex, Northamptonshire, Somerset, Suffolk, Warwickshire and Worcestershire. Most of these places are recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 variously as "Cloptune", "Clotone", "Cloppetona" and "Clopetuna", and all share the same meaning and derivation, which is "the settlement on the hill", derived from the Old English pre 7th Century "clop", lump, hillock, hill, with "tun", settlement, enclosure. Locational surnames were mostly acquired by those former inhabitants of a place who had moved to another area, and were best identified by the name of their birthplace. The modern surname can be found as Clapton, Clapperton and Clopton. The marriage of Edward Clapperton and Dorothy Brocklesby was recorded in St. Mary's, Marylebone, London, on January 10th 1685. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Turstan de Cloptuna, which was dated 1154, in the "Feudal Documents from the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds", Suffolk, during the reign of King Henry 11, known as "The Builder of Churches", 1154 - 1189. 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.