Leonard and the Development of Naming Conventions

Leonard and the Development of Naming Conventions

Surnames first came into widespread use in England in the 1200s and 1300s. Up until the Norman invasion in 1066 and the subsequent inventory of lands and population in the Domesday book for taxation purposes in 1086, people got along well enough with just a given name. For example, a counting of 715 taxpayers in Sheffield, Yorkshire in 1319 found more than half of them named John or William, with no surname.

Under the feudal organization of society, all lands belonged to the king who granted estates to the nobility who served him and who further subdivided lands among the lesser nobles and thanes who oversaw the food production on the lands. Society was thereby organized on a rigid class pyramid, with the king on top, then nobility, then thanes, then free farmers (“ceorls,” pronounced “churls”), then serfs, and slaves at the bottom. 90% of the population in the 1200s lived on the land and worked on food production, which in turn was heavily taxed as the basis of wealth. Because kings could and did change the possession of land grants among the nobility, records did need to be kept among the upper classes.

Because land and its productivity for food production was the basis for wealth, records of its value and who was working the land were necessary. The first surnames were invented based on descriptors of the individual such as John (the) Baker who was a baker by occupation or William (by the) Hill who lived on a hill. Initially, surnames were not hereditary, so John Baker’s son may have a totally different surname. By the late 1300s, surnames had become hereditary in response to more people living in towns, the proliferation of occupations, the decline in feudalism, the desire to maintain family identity, and other social forces. Also, more of the land became available for purchase and private ownership (“bookland”), no longer the discretionary for the kings to distribute and take back as they saw fit.

Under the Anglo-Saxon kings (roughly 500 A.D. to 1066 A.D.) and the Norman kings (after 1066), feudalism was the organizing principle of society, and 90% of the people lived on the land in rural settlements. Of the roughly 2 million people living in England at the time of the Norman Conquest, fewer than 10% lived in cities and towns, with perhaps 25,000 in London. By 1348, just before the plague swept through, 20% of the estimated 6 million residents of England lived in urban areas, over 100,000 in London. After the Black Death reduced the population in the period around 1350 AD, the population was reduced by almost half to 3 million,

Literacy in the 1400s expanded to 15% of the rural population and 50% of the London population in the 1400s.

What this means for Leonard genealogy:

• Some number of families in England chose the name Leonard as their surname. There weren’t preconditions imposed nor controls over which families could claim the name Leonard as their own. We don’t know how many families chose Leonard nor why the choice. There was a Saint Leonard, and his feast day of November 6^th was widely celebrated. His name was given to geographic features, such as St.Leonard’s Forest, and many churches in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Germany.
• At first, surnames applied only to individuals. It took generations before surnames were inherited by families, and later yet as a legally required convention.
• Contemporary haplogroups with Leonards tested include E-M35, I-P37, I-M223, I-M253, J-M172, J-M410, and R-M269. These haplogroups separated thousands of years ago, as did subclades within them. Haplogroups and their subclades change very slowly, over thousands of years.
• The diversity in Leonard Y-DNA haplogroups proves that there are a number of separate, unrelated lines of Leonards. Among the 150 or so Leonards who have been tested by FamilyTreeDNA are at least 10 to 20 separate Leonard lines who could not have been related in the past 1,000 years. There are probably more lines that haven’t yet been identified through testing.
• One cannot expect to trace Leonard genealogy back earlier than the 1300s. With the exception perhaps of some noble lines, there just aren’t name and date records to verify family lines before surnames became hereditary.
• The churches were ordered to start recording births, marriages, and deaths in 1538. Up until this time, there were no orderly censuses listing all members of families by surname.
• Back 12 generations, roughly to the 1600s for many of us, we each had 2,048 ancestors in that generation. Only one of whom carried the direct male family line and up to 2,047 would have other surnames.
• The widespread use of aliases complicates our identification of ancestors 1300-1600.

Bob Leonard, residing over in Bitton, England and testing in the haplogroup R1b and whose ancestors had resided in the Bristol, Somersetshire, since the 1500s researched records as far back as he could. He found the Leonard surname is first recorded in England and Agnes Leonard appearing in the Hundred Rolls of Huntingdonshire, dated 1272, while in Germany Johannes Leonardi of Ulm appears in the charters of that city in 1479. Thomas Leonard was one of the earliest name bearers to settle in the colony of Virginia, New England in 1635. The first recorded spelling of the family name anywhere in the world is that of Stephanus Leonardus. This was dated 1221, in the Assize Court Rolls of Worcestershire, during the reign of King Henry 3rd of England, 1216 - 1272.