Recorded in several spellings including Chadbourn, Chadbourne, Chadband, Chadburn, and Chatband, this is a medieval English locational surname. It originates from the hamlet of Chatburn, in the parish of Whalley, in the county of Lancashire. The place name was first recorded in the rolls of the county for the year 1251 as 'Chatteburn'. This is believed to translate as either the 'stream (burna) of Ceatta', the latter being apparently an early pre 7th century baptismal name, or more likely 'castle stream', from the Roman and later Olde English 'ceaster' meaning an old camp or fortress. By and large locational surnames are 'from' names. That is to say that they were given to, or adopted by people after they left their original homes, and moved elsewhere. In the small communities of the middle ages, it made for a simple means of identifying a 'stranger'. In this case early examples of the surname recordings appear to confirm the 'from' theory. Taken from authentic rolls, charters, and church registers of the relevant period, these recordings include: Johannes de Chatteburn, in the Poll Tax rolls of Yorkshire in the year 1379, also his brother Henricus de Chatteburn, and one Ricardus de Chattburne, whose slightly different spelling, although in the same Poll Tax rolls, may indicate a dfferent family. Later examples include John Chadbourne, who in the death register of the church of St James Clerkenwell, London, for 1660, is recorded as 'a poore ancient man', whilst in a later recording we have the marriage of John Chatband to Susannah Johnson at St George's Chapel, Hanover Square, Mayfair, in 1788.

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