Mayberry

This interesting surname is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a locational name, a dialectal variant of the placename Maesbury in Shropshire. The placename is recorded as "Meresberie" in the Domesday Book of 1086, and as "Mersburi" in the 1272 "Inquisitiones post mortem", and derives from the Olde English pre 7th Century "maere", boundary, and "burg", a fort, often an ancient British (pre-Roman) construction, but later used also of fortified manors; hence, "the fortified place on the boundary". During the Middle Ages, when migration for the purpose of job-seeking was becoming more common, people often took their former village name as a means of identification, thus resulting in a wide dispersal of the name, and in this way also the spelling of the name often changed with varying regional pronunciations. In the modern idiom the surname can be found as Maybery, Maeberry, Maebery, Mayberry, Maybury, Maburie and Maebury. Recordings of the surname from English Church Registers include: the christening of Richard, son of Richard Maybery, at Cheswardine, Shropshire, on September 22nd 1588; the marriage of Richard Mayberry and Elizabeth Newy in 1630, at Cleobury Mortimer, Shropshire; and the marriage of Nicholas Mayberry and Bridget Collinson at Cartmel, Lancashire, on August 14th 1654. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Ann Mabre, which was dated June 27th 1585, christened at St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate, London, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1, known as "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.