Medieval Naming Guides: English Names 1066 to 1300

English Names from the Conquest to 1300

Normans at the Battle of Hastings
A list of names of men known to have accompanied William the Conqueror. These are modern spellings. This list replaces another that we now know to be spurious.

Jewish Naming Conventions in Angevin England, by Eleazar ha-Levi
A very fine survey of Jewish names from the late 11th through the 13th centuries.

Feminine Given Names in A Dictionary of English Surnames, by Talan Gwynek
This dictionary, by P. H. Reaney, contains thousands of dated examples of full names. Master Talan has collected all the period feminine names cited in this work, which range from the Conquest to the end of our period. This excellent piece of scholarship was previously published in the proceedings of the Known World Heraldic Symposium in 1994. The names are presented here indexed by period: before 1250, 1250 to 1450, and after 1450.

12th C English Men's Names in Latin Documents From York, by Aryanhwy merch Catmael
A small collection of Latinized English men's given names and bynames, from mid- to late-12th C records from York. Many of the men recorded in the documents hold clerical or ecclesiastical positions.

Given Names from Early 13th Century England, by Talan Gwynek
Analysis of 877 masculine given names and 165 feminine given names in documents dating from 1230 to 1247

Feminine names from Devon, 1238, by Aryanhwy merch Catmael
Given names of a couple hundred women, in Latin forms or modern translation. The actual spoken, English forms of the names can generally be found in Feminine Given Names in A Dictionary of English Surnames.

Names from 13th Century Northumberland, by Aryanhwy merch Catmael
Given names of a couple hundred women, from a Latin document. The Latin names are paired with their English, spoken forms.

Index of Names in the 1292 Subsidy Roll of London, by Aryanhwy merch Catmael
Masculine and feminine given names and surnames.

Two Early London Subsidy Rolls, British History Online
Text of tax rolls from 1292 and 1319, with detailed introduction.

Rutland Lay Subsidy of 1296
Lists of names copied from the source document by Dr. David Postles of Leicester University. Karen Larsdatter has compiled an index of the names. The same data appears in a more compact format in Douglas Galbi's collection of lists of Given Names in England Before 1800. The three text columns of his database format give the location where the name was reocrded, the original spelling of the full name (mostly Latinized), and a standard modern spelling of the given name.

A Brief Introduction to Medieval Bynames, by Arval Benicoeur and Talan Gwynek
A discussion of how descriptive surnames were constructed, illustrated with examples form late medieval England.

12th & 13th Century English Textile Surnames, by Aryanhwy merch Catmael
A list of occupational bynames used by textile workers.

"Misplaced" Names in Reaney & Wilson, by Jeanne Marie Lacroix
A list of some medieval bynames in Reaney & Wilson's Dictionary of English Surnames. Mostly 13th and 14th century, but some earlier and later.


The Medieval Names Archive is published by Ursula Georges. It was historically published by the Academy of Saint Gabriel.
Copyright on individual articles belongs to their authors.
http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/eng1066to1300.shtml