Jee

This unusual surname, apparently not recorded in England prior to the 16th Century, may conceivably derive from either of two distinct sources. Firstly, Jee may be a variant of the more widely found "Gee", itself a locational name from Gee, now Gee Cross, a prosperous village in the parish of Stockport, Cheshire, believed to be so called from the Anglo-Saxon "gay", a forest clearing, a settlement. The surname Gee is widely recorded in heshire Church Registers from the late 15th Century. Entries include: Dicon Gee, Stockport parish (1494), and the christening of Agnes, daughter of Edward Gee, at Gawsworth, on December 4th 1557. The second possibility is that Gee is a dialectal variant of the name Jay, itself having two sources, the primary one being the Middle English and Old French "jay, gai", joyful, lively, and originally given as a nickname to a particularly vivacious person, or to one sharing some characteristics of the jay bird. Jay is also the name of a village near Leintwardine in Herefordshire, and consequently the surname may also be locational from this spot. Early examples of same include: Walter le Jay (Somerset, 1225), and Richard Jay (London, 1454). On December 28th 1595, Jhon Jee was christened at St. Botolph Without Aldgate, London. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Gilbert Jai (Gai), which was dated 1202, in the "Pipe Rolls of Lincolnshire", during the reign of King John, known as "Lackland", 1199 - 1216. 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.