Lambdon - Name

This uncommon name is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a variant form of the more prevalent surname Lam(b)den, which has two possible interpretations. Firstly, it may be a topographical surname for someone who lived in or by a valley where lambs were reared, derived from the Olde English pre 7th Century "lamb", lamb, with "denu", valley, dene. The name may also derive from some minor, unrecorded, or now "lost" place named with the same elements; the number of early recordings of the surname in Berkshire would suggest that there was a place called Lambden in or near that county. Secondly, the surname may be of Scottish locational origin, from the lands of Lambden in Berwickshire, named with the same Olde English elements as before. The first recording of the name, below, is from this source, and one Roland de Lambeden witnessed a charter of Philip de Halyburton to the Abbey of Kelso in 1261. Examples of the name from English Church Registers include: the marriage of Leonard Lamden and Joane Melton on October 26th 1545, at Stanford-Dingley, Berkshire; the christening of Henry, son of William Lambdon, in Bristol, Gloucestershire, on January 9th 1763; and the christening of Ann, daughter of John Lambdon, at St. Dunstan's, Stepney, London, on March 2nd 1767. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Henry of Lambden, which was dated 1260, Chamberlain of the Monastery of Kelso, during the reign of King Alexander 111 of Scotland, 1249 - 1286. 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.