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Origin / History of the Scrag Name

This unusual surname has two possible sources.  Firstly, the surname may be of Scottish locational origin, from the lands of Scrogges in the barony of Stobo, Peeblesshire.  The derivation of the name coming from the Scottish and northern English dialect terms ‘scrag’ and ‘scrog’, parallel in meaning to the Olde English word ‘stocc’, or ‘stock’, meaning a stump of tree. During the Middle Ages, when migration for the purpose of job-seeking was becoming more common, people often took their former village name as a means of identification, thus resulting in a wide dispersal of the name. The first recorded spelling of the family name in Scotland is shown to be: that of Robert de Scrogges 1208, in the ‘Records of Peeblesshire’; and Adam of Skrogges, burgess of Haddington, along with William del Skogges of Peeblesshire, rendered homage in 1296.  Secondly, the surname may be of early medieval English origin, and would have been a nickname for a thin, bony person, from the Middle English ‘scrag’, meaning thin or scrawny.  Recordings of the surname from various Church Registers include: the christening of Danyell Scragg in 1558, at St. Botolph's without Aldgate, London; the marriage of Alexander Scrag and Jean Black 1656, at Old Machar, Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire; and the christening of An, daughter of Thomas and Frances Scragg in 1687, at All Hallows the Great, London.

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