This unusual and long-established surname is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is locational from either of the places called Buckden in Huntingdonshire and in West Yorkshire. The place in Huntingdonshire was first recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Bugedene", and means either "the valley of Bucca", or "the valley of the bucks", the derivation being from the Olde English pre 7th Century personal name "Bucca", or "bucc", male deer, plus "denn", a dene or valley. Buckden in West Yorkshire was first recorded as "Buckedon" in 1202, and means "valley of the bucks". Locational surnames were usually acquired by a local landowner, or by the lord of the manor, and especially by those former inhabitants of a place who had moved to another area, usually in search of work, and were thereafter best identified by the name of their birthplace. For many years there was a residence for the bishops of Lincoln at Buckden in Huntingdonshire known locally as "Bugden", and one Thomas Barlow (1607 - 1691), then bishop of Lincoln, spent so much of his time there that he became known as "Bishop of Bugden". Recordings from English Church Registers include: the christening of Alice, daughter of Thomas Budgen, on January 14th 1655, at Calverley, Yorkshire, and the christening of Elizabeth, daughter of John and Frances Bugden, on June 1st 1686, at St. Botolph without Aldersgate, London. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of William de Buggenden, which was dated 1195, in the "Pipe Rolls of Lincolnshire", during the reign of King Richard 1, known as "The Lionheart", 1189 - 1199. 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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