Blurton - Name

This name is of English locational origin from a place thus called in Staffordshire. Recorded as "Blorton" in the 1195 Pipe Rolls of that county, the first element may be either the Olde English pre 7th Century "blor" meaning "swelling" - here used in the transferred sense of "hill", or the Olde English "blere", a bare spot, plus "tun", a farm or settlement, hence, "settlement on a hill, or on an exposed spot". The surname is first recorded in the mid 16th Century, (see below). In 1572 John Blurton and Elizabeth Porter were married in Leigh, Staffordshire. The variant spellings Blourton appears to be confined to Rugeley Church Registers in that county. On September 3rd 1613 Edward, son of William Blurton was christened in St. Botloph's without Aldgate, London. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Richard Blurton married Ellen Barlow, which was dated September 2nd 1550 in Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, during the reign of King Edward VI, The Boy King, 1547 - 1553. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.