Rare English surnames are the family names that never spread far from the village, farm or nickname that made them: Clutterbuck, Twelvetrees, Stilgoe, Gotobed, Catchpole, Bracegirdle and Featherstonehaugh among them. Farraday fell from 135 bearers in 1881 to just 21 in 2011, according to the Family Names of the UK project at the University of the West of England, which makes it one of the rarest names with a published count.
This guide is part of our Scottish Names collection. Browse the full Scottish Names directory, see our British surnames from all four nations for the bigger picture, or cross the Border for rare Scottish names you have never heard of.
This page is for anyone with an odd surname who wants to know where it came from, family historians chasing a name that only turns up in one parish, and writers hunting for a surname that sounds English without sounding like a Smith. You get 100 uncommon English surnames with their meaning, type and origin, the county where each was strongest, and the honest caveats where the experts disagree.
Quick context. A surname usually stays rare for one of three reasons: it came from a tiny place (Pegden Farm in Sussex, a lost Yorkshire village), from a nickname only one family ever earned (Gotobed, Drinkwater), or from a dialect word that never travelled (royd, thwaite, bottom). Some, like Farraday, have shrunk since the 1881 census; a few, like Starbuck and Stilgoe, have actually grown.
Two Scots Abroad · Scottish names
Rare English Surname Checker
100 uncommon English surnames, from Ackerley to Yelverton. Search a surname or a word from its meaning, then filter by type, by origin language, or by the part of England where the name was strongest. Each card shows the meaning, where the name was found and a link to the matching Scottish surname page.
No surnames match that. Clear a filter or try a shorter search.
How rare are they? The counts we can actually check
Only a handful of rare surnames have published head counts, and the best source is the Family Names of the UK example names published by UWE Bristol, which give the number of bearers in the 1881 census and in 2011. We have not used figures from name generators or surname-count sites, so every count below comes from that one research page.
| Surname | Bearers in 1881 | Bearers in 2011 | Where in 1881 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Farraday | 135 | 21 | mainly Lancashire |
| Farah (English) | 5 | 1,502 (mostly the Arabic name) | Middlesex and northern England |
| Twelvetrees | 66 | 52 | mainly south Lincolnshire |
| Stilgoe | 96 | 249 | Oxfordshire and Warwickshire |
| Redknap | 97 | 102 | London, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire |
| Toynbee | 136 | 119 | mainly Lincolnshire |
| Pegden | 157 | 131 | mainly Kent |
| Starbuck | 483 | 1,076 | Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire |
| Vardy | 602 | not given | Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire |
| Clutterbuck | 1,027 | 1,165 | mainly Gloucestershire |
For scale, the Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland, edited at UWE, covers the 45,600 most frequent surnames in Britain and Ireland, about 8,000 of them explained for the first time, according to UWE Bristol. Plenty of the names on this page are inside that list; the truly tiny ones, with a few dozen bearers, sit right at its edge.
Why some English surnames stay rare
Most rare English surnames are place names, and the places are small. Read the endings and you can often tell which corner of England a name grew up in, because the dialect words that made them were local too.
| Element | Meaning | Rare names on this page |
|---|---|---|
| -bottom | valley floor (Old English botm) | Sidebottom, Ramsbottom, Winterbottom, Bottomley |
| -thwaite | clearing (Old Norse thveit) | Satterthwaite, Hebblethwaite, Micklethwaite, Thistlethwaite, Applewhite |
| -worth | enclosure (Old English worth) | Hollingworth, Illingworth, Shuttleworth, Wigglesworth |
| -halgh, -haugh | hollow or nook (Old English healh, holh) | Greenhalgh, Featherstonehaugh |
| -twistle | fork, where two streams meet (Old English twisel) | Birtwistle, Entwistle |
| -shaw | copse, small wood (Old English sceaga) | Bagshaw, Grimshaw |
| -croft | enclosed field | Ravenscroft |
| -hurst | wooded hill (Old English hyrst) | Pankhurst, Dewhurst |
Nicknames are the other big group, and they are a cracking read: Drinkwater, Doolittle, Makepeace, Goodenough, Scattergood. Ernest Weekley, in The Romance of Names (1914), groups Shakespeare with Shakeshaft, Waghorn, Wagstaff and Breakspear as the same kind of name, a verb plus the thing being waved about. The English surnames A to Z list has the common names that sit alongside these.
Rare English surnames worth a closer look
Clutterbuck
Meaning: a Dutch nickname from kloterboeck. Type: nickname. Origin: Dutch. Strongest in 1881: Gloucestershire.
UWE explains Clutterbuck as Dutch in origin, a nickname from kloterboeck, and counted 1,027 bearers in 1881, mainly in Gloucestershire, rising slightly to 1,165 in 2011. Guppy’s 1890 count of farmers’ names found it in Gloucestershire too, at 17 per 10,000 farmers. It is a name that has stayed put for well over a century.
Farraday
Meaning: fair day, for someone with a cheerful disposition. Type: nickname. Origin: Middle English. Strongest in 1881: Lancashire.
UWE reads Farraday as Middle English faire dai, “(have a) fair day”, presumably for someone with a cheerful disposition. It is the steepest faller on this page: 135 bearers in 1881, mainly in Lancashire, and 21 in 2011. Vardy, the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire name, comes from the same phrase.
Twelvetrees
Meaning: a form of Twelftree with an added -s. Type: topographic. Origin: Middle English. Strongest in 1881: Lincolnshire.
A form of Twelftree with an added -s, says UWE; in 1881 Twelftree itself was a Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire name. Twelvetrees had 66 bearers in 1881, mainly in south Lincolnshire, and 52 in 2011. Weekley set it beside Fiveash and Snooks (seven oaks) as one of England’s tree-counting names.
Stilgoe
Meaning: from stille, silently or meekly, for someone who moved quietly. Type: nickname. Origin: Middle English. Strongest in 1881: Oxfordshire.
From Middle English stille, silently, meekly or secretly, so a nickname for someone who went about quietly. Stilgoe is the rare name that grew: 96 bearers in 1881, mainly in Oxfordshire and Warwickshire, and 249 by 2011, according to UWE.
Redknap
Meaning: probably red + knappe (boy, servant), a red-haired lad. Type: nickname. Origin: Middle English. Strongest in 1881: Buckinghamshire.
Probably red plus knappe, boy or servant, so a red-haired lad. UWE counted 97 bearers in 1881, mostly in London, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, and 102 in 2011. As stable as rare names get.
Toynbee
Meaning: from Tumby in Lincolnshire. Type: locative. Origin: English place name. Strongest in 1881: Lincolnshire.
A locative name from Tumby in Lincolnshire, whose earliest recorded forms had an n rather than an m, which explains the spelling. UWE counted 136 Toynbees in 1881, mainly in Lincolnshire, and 119 in 2011.
Pegden
Meaning: from Pegden Farm in Lindfield, Sussex. Type: locative. Origin: English place name. Strongest in 1881: Kent.
From a single small place, Pegden Farm in Lindfield, Sussex, which is about as local as an English surname gets. In 1881 the 157 bearers were mainly in Kent; by 2011 there were 131.
Starbuck
Meaning: a form of Tarbuck, from Tarbock in Lancashire (disputed). Type: locative. Origin: English place name. Strongest in 1881: Nottinghamshire.
Here the experts disagree, and we will say so. UWE’s family names team says Starbuck is a form of Tarbuck, from Tarbock in Lancashire; Wiktionary instead links it to Starbeck in North Yorkshire. Either way it was a Midlands name in 1881 (483 bearers, mainly Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire) and had doubled to 1,076 by 2011.
Gotobed
Meaning: probably go to bed, a nickname for a sluggard (disputed). Type: nickname. Origin: Middle English. Comes from: Cambridgeshire.
Wiktionary calls it probably a nickname: go to bed. Weekley noted a John Gotobed in Cambridgeshire in 1273, cast him as a notorious sluggard beside his neighbour Serl Gotokirke, and said the name was still found in the same county in 1914. The older writer Bardsley had tried to derive it from the personal name Godbeorht, so treat the bedtime story as likely rather than proven.
Catchpole
Meaning: catch fowl, a bailiff who could seize poultry for unpaid debts. Type: occupational. Origin: Norman French. Strongest in 1890: Suffolk.
From Anglo-Norman cachepole, catch fowl: a nickname for a bailiff who could seize poultry and other livestock when debts or taxes went unpaid. Guppy found it in Suffolk (20 per 10,000 farmers) and Norfolk (9) in 1890, so it is an East Anglian name through and through.
Drinkwater
Meaning: a pauper or miser who could not afford beer, or ironically a tippler. Type: nickname. Origin: Middle English. Strongest in 1890: Cheshire.
A nickname for a pauper or miser who could not, or would not, pay for beer, or, the other way round, for an innkeeper or a noted tippler. In 1890 Guppy found it in Cheshire, Gloucestershire and Derbyshire.
Bracegirdle
Meaning: breeks-girdle, someone who wore a fine belt. Type: nickname. Origin: Middle English. Strongest in 1890: Cheshire.
Weekley read it as breeks-girdle, the nickname of someone who wore a fine belt, and noted it is mostly found in Cheshire, the same county as the similar Broadbelt. Guppy’s count agrees: 24 per 10,000 farmers in Cheshire in 1890.
Featherstonehaugh
Meaning: featherstone + healh (nook); often said like Fanshawe. Type: locative. Origin: Old English.
Old English feather-stone plus healh, a nook. The famous part is the pronunciation: Wiktionary puts the short spoken form down to the long name being clipped and confused with the unrelated Fanshawe. Everyone who has ever spelled it down a phone line deserves a medal.
Cholmondeley
Meaning: Ceolmund’s clearing (Calmundelai in Domesday); also spelled Chumley. Type: locative. Origin: Old English.
Ceolmund’s clearing, recorded as Calmundelai in Domesday Book. The spelling Chumley is listed as an alternative form, which tells you how the name is usually said.
Pocock
Meaning: a form of Peacock. Type: nickname. Origin: Middle English. Strongest in 1890: Wiltshire.
A form of Peacock, and a name that belonged to Wiltshire: Guppy counted 80 per 10,000 farmers there in 1890, against 20 in Berkshire and 15 in Hertfordshire.
Winterbottom
Meaning: the valley used only in winter, with summers on upland pasture. Type: topographic. Origin: Old English.
A topographic name for someone who lived in a valley only in winter and spent summer on the upland pastures. Sidebottom (a Cheshire place, strongest in Derbyshire in 1890) and Ramsbottom (Lancashire) are the same family of bottom names.
Entwistle
Meaning: hen or duck + twisel (fork). Type: locative. Origin: Old English. Strongest in 1890: Lancashire.
Hen or duck plus twisel, a fork where streams meet. Guppy counted 34 per 10,000 farmers in Lancashire in 1890 and noted Entwisle as a less common spelling. Birtwistle, from a lost Lancashire village, is its near neighbour.
Huxtable
Meaning: hoc + stapol (post), a name typical of Devon. Type: locative. Origin: Old English. Strongest in 1890: Devon.
A habitational name typical of Devon, from Old English hoc plus stapol, a post. Guppy found 25 per 10,000 farmers in Devon in 1890; Northcott (north cottage) is another Devon and Cornwall name in the same count.
Twentyman
Meaning: the commander of a levy of twenty men. Type: occupational. Origin: Middle English.
From Middle English twentiman, the commander of a levy of twenty or more men. It is one of the few military ranks to survive as a surname.
Hogsflesh
Meaning: a dealer in meat. Type: occupational. Origin: Middle English.
Weekley’s classic example of a name for a meat dealer, alongside Mutton and Veal, which he said could be seen fairly near each other on the Hammersmith Road in his day.
Wagstaff
Meaning: wag staff, an official who carried a staff. Type: occupational. Origin: Middle English. Strongest in 1890: Nottinghamshire.
Wag plus staff: an official who carried a staff of office. Guppy found it in Nottinghamshire (24 per 10,000 farmers), Essex and Derbyshire in 1890. Waghorn, the hornblower, is built the same way.
Are English surnames dying out?
Some are, though not the ones the headlines pick. In 2013 Ancestry.co.uk compared 1901 census names with modern records and said that Chips, Hatman, Rummage, Nithercott, Raynott, Temples, Southwark and Woodbead had disappeared, and that Clegg, Cohen, Kershaw, Sutcliffe, Butterworth and Greenwood were “in danger”, as Channel 4 News reported. William, as a surname, had dropped from 374th in 1901 to 12,500th.
Watch out for: treat lost-surname lists with a pinch of salt. Wiktionary records Rummage as an Americanised spelling of the German Rometsch, so it was never a purely English name, and Kershaw, Sutcliffe, Butterworth and Greenwood all turn up in Guppy’s 1890 county counts and in our English surnames A to Z. The proven fallers are names like Farraday, down from 135 bearers to 21 between 1881 and 2011.
How to research a rare English surname
Rare names are a gift for family history, because there are so few of them. Work through it in this order.
- Pin down the county first. A rare name usually has one home. Census returns will show you where your family clustered, and that county is your best clue to the original place or nickname.
- Look for the place. More than half the names here are locative. If the name ends in -thwaite, -worth, -bottom or -halgh, search old maps and county place-name surveys for a farm or hamlet with the same name.
- Check a proper dictionary. The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland, from UWE’s Family Names of the UK project, corrected several older explanations, including Starbuck and Dawkins. If two sources disagree, keep both until the records settle it.
- Count the bearers. If your name had fewer than a few hundred bearers in 1881, a one-name study is realistic: you may be able to trace everyone with the surname back to one or two families.
If your rare name turns out to be Scottish rather than English, our Scottish surnames from places guide covers the other side of the Border, and the Old English and Anglo-Saxon surnames guide goes back to the layer before 1066.
Quick list: all 100 rare English surnames
| Surname | Meaning | Type | Origin | Where |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ackerley | field clearing (aecer + leah) | Locative | Old English | |
| Applegarth | apple-tree enclosure (apaldr + gardr) | Locative | Old Norse | 1890: Durham |
| Applewhite | from Applethwaite in the Lake District, apple-tree clearing | Locative | Old Norse | Origin: Lake District |
| Attenborough | the burh of the Eadings, or of Eadda | Locative | Old English | 1890: Northamptonshire |
| Bagshaw | Bacga’s or badger copse (sceaga) | Locative | Old English | 1890: Derbyshire |
| Bickerstaffe | from Old English bicere + staeth (bank, landing place) | Locative | Old English | |
| Birtwistle | birch + twisel (fork of a river), a lost Lancashire village | Locative | Old English and Old Norse | Origin: Lancashire |
| Bottomley | valley-bottom clearing, a West Yorkshire place | Locative | Old English | 1890: West Riding |
| Bracegirdle | breeks-girdle, someone who wore a fine belt | Nickname | Middle English | 1890: Cheshire |
| Breakspear | break spear, the same type of name as Shakespeare | Nickname | Middle English | 1890: Oxfordshire |
| Bulstrode | apparently someone who mounted a bull | Nickname | Middle English | |
| Catchpole | catch fowl, a bailiff who could seize poultry for unpaid debts | Occupational | Norman French | 1890: Suffolk |
| Cawthorne | cold thornbush (cald + thorn) | Locative | Old English | |
| Cholmondeley | Ceolmund’s clearing (Calmundelai in Domesday); also spelled Chumley | Locative | Old English | |
| Clatworthy | from Old English clate + worthig (estate) | Locative | Old English | |
| Clutterbuck | a Dutch nickname from kloterboeck | Nickname | Dutch | 1881: Gloucestershire |
| Copplestone | perhaps a peaked or rounded stone | Locative | Old English | |
| Crapper | a form of Cropper, a cropper | Occupational | Middle English | 1890: West Riding |
| Dewhurst | dewy wooded hill, Lancashire | Topographic | Old English | 1890: Lancashire |
| Doolittle | do little, a nickname for an idler | Nickname | Middle English | 1890: Worcestershire |
| Drinkwater | a pauper or miser who could not afford beer, or ironically a tippler | Nickname | Middle English | 1890: Cheshire |
| Earwaker | from the Old English personal name Eoforwacer | Patronymic | Old English | |
| Entwistle | hen or duck + twisel (fork) | Locative | Old English | 1890: Lancashire |
| Fairclough | fair clough (narrow valley), a minor Lancashire place | Locative | Middle English | 1890: Lancashire |
| Farah | the rare English Farah is a northern form of Farrer, an ironworker | Occupational | Old French | 1881: Middlesex |
| Farraday | fair day, for someone with a cheerful disposition | Nickname | Middle English | 1881: Lancashire |
| Fazakerley | from Old English faes + aecer (field) + leah (clearing) | Locative | Old English | 1890: Lancashire |
| Featherstone | four stones (fither + stan) | Locative | Old English | 1890: North and East Ridings |
| Featherstonehaugh | featherstone + healh (nook); often said like Fanshawe | Locative | Old English | |
| Fortescue | strong shield | Nickname | Norman French | 1890: Northamptonshire |
| Gascoigne | a man from Gascony | Locative | Old French | |
| Gathercole | gather cole, cabbage or charcoal | Nickname | Middle English | |
| Golightly | go lightly, much the same as Lightfoot | Nickname | Middle English | |
| Goodbody | a good person | Nickname | Middle English | |
| Goodenough | good enough, or good knave (good boy, servant) | Nickname | Middle English | |
| Goodlad | good lad, a trusted servant | Nickname | Middle English | |
| Gotobed | probably go to bed, a nickname for a sluggard (disputed) | Nickname | Middle English | Origin: Cambridgeshire |
| Greenhalgh | green hollow (grene + holh) | Locative | Old English | 1890: Lancashire |
| Grimshaw | Grim’s shaw (copse) | Locative | Old English and Old Norse | 1890: Lancashire |
| Halfpenny | halfpenny, a nickname for a tenant | Nickname | Middle English | |
| Hebblethwaite | from Old English heope + Old Norse thveit (clearing), a Cumbrian place | Locative | Old English and Old Norse | Origin: Cumbria |
| Hogsflesh | a dealer in meat | Occupational | Middle English | |
| Hollingworth | holly enclosure (holen + worth) | Locative | Old English | 1890: Derbyshire |
| Honeyball | probably a popular form of Hannibal | Patronymic | Middle English | |
| Huxtable | hoc + stapol (post), a name typical of Devon | Locative | Old English | 1890: Devon |
| Illingworth | the enclosure of Illa’s people | Locative | Old English | 1890: West Riding |
| Ketteringham | a personal name (as in Kettering) + ham (village) | Locative | Old English | |
| Lamplugh | parish + bare, a Brittonic place name | Locative | Brittonic | 1890: North and East Ridings |
| Lightfoot | light foot, a messenger or fast runner | Nickname | Middle English | 1890: Cumberland and Westmorland |
| Lovelace | loveless, possibly a philanderer | Nickname | Middle English | |
| Mainwaring | from a lost place in Normandy | Locative | Norman French | 1890: Herefordshire |
| Makepeace | make peace, a peacemaker | Nickname | Middle English | 1890: Durham |
| Merriweather | merry weather, for someone with a sunny disposition | Nickname | Middle English | |
| Micklethwaite | big clearing (mikill + thveit) | Locative | Old Norse | |
| Nettleship | nettle valley, a lost Yorkshire place | Locative | Old English | Origin: Yorkshire |
| Northcott | north cottage | Locative | Old English | 1890: Devon |
| Oddy | from Ode, a Germanic name with the element riches | Patronymic | Middle English | |
| Pankhurst | perhaps finch + wooded hillock (pinca + hyrst) | Locative | Old English | 1890: Sussex |
| Pegden | from Pegden Farm in Lindfield, Sussex | Locative | English place name | 1881: Kent |
| Pettifer | iron foot (pied de fer) | Nickname | Old French | |
| Plowright | a maker of ploughs | Occupational | Middle English | 1890: Nottinghamshire |
| Pocock | a form of Peacock | Nickname | Middle English | 1890: Wiltshire |
| Popplewell | from Old English popel + wielle (spring), several Yorkshire places | Locative | Old English | Origin: Yorkshire |
| Ramsbottom | ram or ramsons (wild garlic) + bottom | Locative | Old English | 1890: Lancashire |
| Ravenscroft | Hraefn’s croft (enclosed field), a Cheshire place | Locative | Old English | 1890: Cheshire |
| Redknap | probably red + knappe (boy, servant), a red-haired lad | Nickname | Middle English | 1881: Buckinghamshire |
| Salkeld | willow wood (sealh + hylte), two Cumbrian places | Locative | Old English | Origin: Cumbria |
| Satterthwaite | from Old Norse saetr + thveit (clearing) | Locative | Old Norse | |
| Scattergood | scatter goods, the opposite of Gathergood | Nickname | Middle English | |
| Shakeshaft | shake shaft, the same type of name as Shakespeare | Nickname | Middle English | 1890: Buckinghamshire |
| Shoesmith | a smith who shod horses | Occupational | Middle English | |
| Shuttleworth | from Old English scyttel + worth (enclosure) | Locative | Old English | 1890: Lancashire |
| Sidebottom | side + bottom (valley floor), a Cheshire place | Locative | Old English | 1890: Derbyshire |
| Sillitoe | a minor place in Featherstone parish (meaning unclear) | Locative | Middle English | |
| Smallbone | small bone, a nickname for a small person | Nickname | Middle English | |
| Sowerby | from Old Norse saurr + by (farmstead) | Locative | Old Norse | 1890: Durham |
| Starbuck | a form of Tarbuck, from Tarbock in Lancashire (disputed) | Locative | English place name | 1881: Nottinghamshire |
| Stilgoe | from stille, silently or meekly, for someone who moved quietly | Nickname | Middle English | 1881: Oxfordshire |
| Strangeways | a place by a stream with a strong current | Topographic | Old English | |
| Sugden | from Old English sucga + dene (valley), a West Yorkshire place | Locative | Old English | 1890: West Riding |
| Thackeray | thatch + nook, a place with thatching, in Yorkshire | Locative | Old Norse | Origin: Yorkshire |
| Thistlethwaite | a clearing among thistles | Locative | Old English and Old Norse | |
| Thurgood | Thor + Geat (Thorgautr) | Patronymic | Old Norse | 1890: Essex |
| Tickle | from Tickhill | Locative | Old English | 1890: Cheshire |
| Tidball | from the given name Theobald | Patronymic | Middle English | |
| Tollemache | a travelling merchant (Old French talemasche) | Occupational | Old French | |
| Toynbee | from Tumby in Lincolnshire | Locative | English place name | 1881: Lincolnshire |
| Tugwell | apparently a nickname for a tucker (fuller of cloth) | Occupational | Middle English | |
| Twelvetrees | a form of Twelftree with an added -s | Topographic | Middle English | 1881: Lincolnshire |
| Twentyman | the commander of a levy of twenty men | Occupational | Middle English | |
| Vardy | fair day, the same origin as Farraday | Nickname | Middle English | 1881: Derbyshire |
| Waghorn | wag horn, a hornblower | Nickname | Middle English | |
| Wagstaff | wag staff, an official who carried a staff | Occupational | Middle English | 1890: Nottinghamshire |
| Wedgwood | from Old English wice + wudu (wood) | Locative | Old English | |
| Whitlock | white lock of hair | Nickname | Middle English | 1890: Essex |
| Wigglesworth | from Old English wincel + worth (enclosure) | Locative | Old English | |
| Winterbottom | the valley used only in winter, with summers on upland pasture | Topographic | Old English | |
| Wolstenholme | Wulfstan’s holm, a minor Lancashire place | Locative | Old English and Old Norse | Origin: Lancashire |
| Wombwell | Wamba’s spring (wella) | Locative | Old English | |
| Yelverton | from Elleford, elder ford (ellen + ford) | Locative | Old English |
FAQ about rare English surnames
What is the rarest surname in England?
There is no official answer, because no statistics office publishes counts for every surname. Among names with published figures, Farraday is one of the rarest: UWE counted 21 bearers in Britain in 2011, down from 135 in 1881. Twelvetrees had 52 and Pegden 131.
What are some unusual English surnames?
Good examples are Gotobed, Clutterbuck, Twelvetrees, Featherstonehaugh, Cholmondeley, Bracegirdle, Drinkwater, Hogsflesh, Catchpole and Winterbottom. Most are either nicknames (Gotobed, Drinkwater) or names from small places (Cholmondeley, Featherstonehaugh). Our checker above lets you filter all 100 on this page by type, origin and region.
Which English surnames are dying out?
Farraday is a proven example, falling from 135 bearers in 1881 to 21 in 2011, according to UWE. Ancestry.co.uk claimed in 2013 that Chips, Hatman, Nithercott, Raynott and Woodbead had disappeared since 1901. Treat those lists with care, because some names on them, such as Rummage, were never English in the first place.
How many surnames are there in Britain?
Far more than any dictionary covers. The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland explains the 45,600 most frequent surnames, nearly 40,000 of them native to Britain and Ireland, according to UWE. Below that threshold sit many thousands of rarer names, including several on this page.
Is Gotobed a real surname?
Yes. A John Gotobed lived in Cambridgeshire in 1273, and Ernest Weekley said the name was still found in that county in 1914. Wiktionary calls it probably a nickname meaning go to bed. An older theory derived it from the personal name Godbeorht, so the sleepy meaning is likely rather than certain.
Final thoughts on rare English surnames
If your surname is on this list, the short version is good news: rare names are far easier to trace than common ones, and most of them point straight back to one county, and often one farm or village.
If you want the common names that sit beside these, the English surnames A to Z list linked above has more than 300 of them with their meanings. And if you are deciding between a rare English name and a rare Scottish one for a character or a bairn (a child), the rare Scottish names guide in the collection box at the top is the place to compare.
Sources
- UWE Bristol, Family Names of the UK: example family names (1881 and 2011 counts)
- UWE Bristol, UK’s largest ever study reveals origins of 45,600 surnames, 17 November 2016
- Wiktionary, English surname entries and etymologies
- Ernest Weekley, The Romance of Names (1914), Project Gutenberg
- H. B. Guppy, Homes of Family Names in Great Britain (1890), Internet Archive
- Channel 4 News, Clegg on the endangered surnames list, 22 February 2013
