Sango

This is a very unusual surname. Whilst it may appear to be of French or at least Continental origins, in its spelling as Sango, it is pure English. Or perhaps we should say that it has been since at least August 23rd 1751, when Stephen Sango, the son of Stephen Sango, was christened at St Luke's church, Finsbury, in the city of London. It probably originates from the French village of Sangay in the region known as Haute-Garonne, and by the dating is almost certainly a protestant Huguenot entry into England, but this is not proven. The origination, like many French locational surnames is from an early saint, so the spelling of the place name before (say) the 10th century a.d. was Saint Gai or similar. Some fifty thousand French Huguenots fled into Britain in the 16th to 18th centuries. They were often soldiers and proved of great value to successive British Armies from William of Orange in 1690 to Marlborough and even Wellington, in the various wars against the French upto 1815. As civilians they were usually skilled craftsmen, and they brought with them many arts including silk making and steel, which helped in the British Industrial Revolution from about 1710. In this case other examples of the surname include: Jane Sango, the daughter of John Sango, who was christened at St Andrews by the Wardrobe in the city of London on February 15th 1767, and Martha Sango, who married Richard Maynard, at St. Leonards, Shoreditch, on July 13th 1800.