Winham

Recorded in several spellings including Wineham, Wingham, Winham, and possibly others, this is an English surname. It is locational from Wingham, near Canterbury, in the county of Kent. The placename is recorded as "Uuigincggaham" in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles of 834 a.d., and as "Wuungham" in the same charters a century later in 946. In the Domesday Book of 1086, the place appears as "Wingheham", and subsequently it has been Winham and Wineham. The name means "the settlement of Wiga's people", derived from the Olde English pre 7th Century personal name "Wiga", a short form of the various compound names with a first element "wig", war, with the suffix "-ing(as)", tribe, people of, and "ham", enclosure, settlement. Locational surnames were acquired by local landowners and the lord of the manor, and especially by those former inhabitants of a place who had moved to another area, and were thereafter best identified by the name of their birthplace. London Church Registers record the marriage of Arthure Wingham and Katherine Bulbeck at St. Dunstan's, Stepney, on May 8th 1587, and the christening of their daughter, Ann, on August 24th 1595 at the same church. A Coat of Arms granted to Henry de Wingham, Bishop of London, 1259 - 1262, depicts a red human heart between two gold wings, displayed. The Crest is a sword and feather in saltire proper. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Henry de Wyngeham, which was dated 1273, in the "Hundred Rolls of Kent", during the reign of King Edward 1, known as "The Hammer of the Scots", 1272 - 1307. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.