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Origin / History of the White Name Recorded as White, Wight, Whyte, and the unusual Whight, this is an English surname of the most ancient roots, and has a number of possible origins. In the single spellings of White or Wita, it appears in the very earliest surviving registers such as the famous Anglo-Saxon Chronicles of the pre- 9th Century. Whilst translating as white, the early name referred either to a baby, one who was ‘unblemished’, or it may have been for some nameholders an ethnic term given to a Viking or Anglo-Saxon, who were pale in hair and complexion compared with the original native Celts, who were dark. Another possible origin is residential. If so this could describe somebody who lived at a ‘wiht’, generally regarded as being the bend of a river, but in some areas of the country could describe a stretch of land suitable for grazing. It could also mean ‘the wait’, as in the village name of White in Devon, which originally, it is claimed, denoted a place suitable for an ambush! Lastly the name can be Huguenot 17th Century, many French people called 'Blanc' fled France after 1685, and in England they changed their name to White. Early examples of the surname recording taken from surviving charters and registers include: Alwin Wit, in the 1086 Domesday Book for Hampshire; Ordgar se Wite of Somerset in the year 1070; Walter le Wytte in London in 1284; the Ancient and Feudal Arms of England show that a Sir John White (also spelt Whyght) in the time of King Edward II, was listed as having fought at the battle of Boroughbridge in Yorkshire 1322, when the Scots were defeated; and William le Wytt, is found in the Subsidy Rolls of York in 1327.
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