Surname history in 'biggest' database

What does my surname mean and where does it come from? It is the question that baffles many amateur genealogists.

The meanings of all 150,000 surnames in use across Britain look set to be revealed as part of the largest-ever database of family names in the UK.

The database will include very common names such as Miller or Williams, but will also cast light on the stories behind those unusual surnames which have fewer than 100 bearers.

The £834,350 ($1.9 million) research project, led by the University of the West of England (UWE), plans to reveal the stories behind our surnames and make them publicly available to all home genealogists, family historians, and anyone interested in learning more about their family name.

The study will not focus exclusively on names of English and Scots origin, but will also include names of Norman French, Gaelic, Welsh and Cornish origin, as well as Huguenot, Jewish and later immigrant names.

Using published and unpublished resources, dating from as far back as the 11th century, a team of researchers will collect information about individual names, such as when and where they were recorded and how they have been spelled. Many variations in surnames resulted from misspellings or mishearings of names at a time when few people were literate.

The database will also attempt to shed light on the social origins of names. For example, the earliest surnames of the land-holding classes were more likely to be descriptions or names of places than those of other classes.

Meanwhile, small tenants and serfs were likely to have a name ending in "-s" or "-son", such as Roberts or Jackson, to link them to an ancestor.

"Our project will use the most up-to-date techniques and evidence available to create a more detailed and accurate resource than those currently available," said Professor Richard Coates of UWE's Bristol Centre for Linguistics.

"For example, new statistical methods for linking family names to locations will enable us to provide more accurate and detailed origins for names.

"Names can have origins that are occupational - obvious examples are Smith and Baker. Or names can be linked to a place, for example, the names Hill or Green [which related to village greens]. Surnames which are 'patronymic' are those which enshrine the father's name, such as Jackson or Jenkinson. There are also names descriptive of the original bearer, such as Brown, Short or Thin."

Professor Coates added: "Our database will describe the origins of names, both in linguistic terms and also how they arose in the first place.

"By listing the spellings of the name with a date, we will be able to see how names have changed over the years, and in some cases this will also give us a snapshot of social history and mobility. Names still tend to cluster where they originated, so some that originated in the West Country can still be found in numbers in the region today, for example, Batten, Clist, Yeo and Vagg."

The project will begin in April and will last four years. It is planned to have the database available online for public consultation from 2014.

"I have always been fascinated by names for people, places and institutions," Professor Coates said. "Surnames are part of our identity. My main interest is in the linguistic side, in the language of origin and the original meaning of the names, but this research is interdisciplinary, drawing also on history, family history, place-name study, official statistics and genetics."

- INDEPENDENT