My interest in a single surname study came about from researching my significant other half’s family tree. His maternal grandmother was an Edenborough, not a very common surname, and over the past 25 years I’ve accumulated a large amount of material on all Edenborough’s, worldwide. In 2014 I registered the study with The Surname Society having also registered the study with the Guild of One Name Studies in 2006.
Variant Names
Among the more common variants for Edenborough are Edenbor(r)ow(e), Edenbor(r)o, Edinborough, Edinbo(r)ro, Edinburgh, Edenbrow, Edinbro, Edenbrough, Eddenborrough, Edenburrow, Edenbarrow, Edborough, Edingborough, Adenborough.
Name Origin
The jury is still out on the origin of the surname. Sadly, most surname dictionaries have just aimed their research at the earliest known occurrence of the surname in England, even suggesting it may originate from the Scottish metropolis, Edinburgh. Lower’s Patronymica Britannica, The Oxford Dictionary of British Surnames and Black’s The Surnames of Scotland all suggest it as being a variation of the Scottish metropolis.
Apart from three christenings of Edenburghs in the 1690s and the marriage of an Edingburgh in 1809, I am yet to find any further appearances of the surname to support the Scottish theory.
Henry Harrison in The Surnames of the United Kingdom suggests a connection to the King of Northumbria, Eadwine. And Charles Wareing Bardsley writes in English Surnames “that the manorial residence is still in many parts of England, with the country folk, the ‘bury’. To this or ‘borough’ we owe our Burys, Boroughs, Borrows, Buroughs, Broughs, Burghs” – all variations I have found in my Edenborough research.
The surname is quite obviously locative and, according to fellow surname studier, Andrew Millard, the town of Attenborough, Nottinghamshire, could be a strong contender for the place of origin. Andrew pointed out that findings of the English Place-Name Society show Attenborough as having been variously Addenbroug’ (1305), Adenburgh (1401), Adynburgh (1439), Addenborough (1496), Adenberow/Adenborrow (1535), Adenborowe (1570) and the spelling of Attenborough with “tt” rather than “d” or “dd” appears from 1617. Furthermore, Andrew advised, “make the minor vowel change from A to E and you have Edenborough and its variants”.
Interestingly, my studies into the surname have shown a strong localisation to this area,
Distribution of the Name
Historical distribution of the surname has been almost wholly found around the shires of Leicester, Nottingham and Lincoln.
From the 1800s, bearers of the surname emigrated to the Americas, Australia and New Zealand.
Data
The following links will allow you to search the indexes of the General Register Office (UK) for:
Deaths: Under construction