This is an English habitational name of ancient origins. It derives from "col" meaning "cool" and "burna", a stream or riverlet, and describes one who lived at such a place, which may have been Colburn in North Yorkshire. This village is recorded as "Corburne" in the 1086 Domesday Book of William The Conqueror, and as "Coleburn" in the 1198 Curia Regis Rolls for Yorkshire. There are now a number of variant spellings of the surname, including; Colbourn, Coleborn, Colborn, and Colburn. Oddly, in the 20th Century, the name is most frequently found in Warwickshire, suggesting that there may have been a now "lost" medieval village in that region. The name recordings include William de Colburn, in the Friary Rolls of Yorkshire (1386), whilst Thomas Coleburne married Mary Colchester at Stratford on Avon, on April 24th 1592. On December 28th 1668, Richard Colborn was recorded at Broughton Church, Hampshire, and on March 13th 1790, at St. Mary's, Portsea, Robert Coleborn married Sarah Philips. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Geoffrey de Colebrunn, which was dated 1208, in the "Pleas before the King or his Justices", York, during the reign of King John, known as "Lackland", 1199 - 1216. 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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