It is rare indeed for a surname to mean precisely what it says, but 'Clogg' is an excellent example. It is probably Olde English, but may be Dutch, and is occupational for a maker of wooden 'clogs', which were originally both roof tiles and shoes with wooden soles. Curiously the first surname recordings are rather late, itself a further confirmation that the name is an 'import' from the 'The Netherlands'. Today the word is synonymous with Lancashire, but in fact all the early surname recordings are from East Anglia. Occupational surnames were often not hereditary, and Matthew Clogmaker as shown in the first recording below did not apparently appear in the next generation, either because he had no children, or because his son took on another occupation, and was named according to his trade, profession, or location. Examples of the early recordings of the surname include Symond Clog and Joan Clog in the 1524 Subsidy Rolls of Suffolk, James Clogge who married Margaret Martin at St Dunstans in the East, Stepney, on December 15th 1628, and Rebecca Clogg, daughter of Mark Clogg, christened at St Mary Whitechapel, London, on February 26th 1769. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Matthew Clogmaker, which was dated 1367, in the court register of the town of Colchester, Essex, during the reign of King Edward 11, known as 'The father of the Navy', 1327 - 1377. 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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