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Origin / History of the Crouch Name

Of Anglo-Saxon origin, this is a topographical name for someone who lived by a cross.  The derivation of the name is from the Middle English ‘crouch’, a cross, itself from the Olde English pre-7^th Century ‘cruc’.  This word was replaced in Middle English by the Old Norse form ‘cross’. Topographical surnames were among the earliest created, since both natural and man-made features in the landscape provided easily recognizable distinguishing names in the small communities of the Middle Ages.  The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Gilbert Cruche, which was dated 1221, in the ‘Curia Regis Rolls of Devonshire’; while William Attecruche is noted in the 1290 Assize Court Rolls of Essex; and Thomas Crouch is listed in the Subsidy Rolls of Essex in 1329.  Recordings of the surname from London Church Registers include: the marriage of Nicholas Crowche and Elsabeth Gylb in 1539, at St. Margaret's, Westminster; and the marriage of Richard Crowch and Agnes Read in 1561, at St. Mary's, Harrow on the Hill.  An interesting name bearer, recorded in the ‘Dictionary of National Biography’, was Humphrey Crouch (1635 - 1671), who was a ballad writer whose works include such poems and ballads as ‘Love's Court of Conscience’, and ‘The Welch Traveller’.  Modern forms of the surname can be found as Crouch, Crowch, Crotch and Crutch.

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