This name is of Scottish locational origin from any of the places called Borland or Bordland in Dumfriesshire, Galloway, Fife and Pertshire. The name derives from the Olde English pre 7th Century "bord" meaning a table, plus "land" usually translating as "estate" or "landed property". The reference here is to a "home farm" i.e. land which supplied food for the table of the Lord resident in the Manor. The surname with variant spellings Borland and Boreland is first recorded in the early 16th Century, (see below). On July 7th 1674, Bessie Borland and John Gibb were married in Canongate, Midlothian, and on November 11th 1722, Margaret, daughter of Thomas Borland and Margaret Galbreath, was christened in Edinburgh Parish. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of James Bordland, witness in Ayrshire, which was dated 1513, in the "Protocol Book of Garin Ros", Edinburgh, during the reign of King James V of Scotland, 1513 - 1542. 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.

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