This unusual and interesting name is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and has two possible interpretations, both related to the Old English pre 7th Century personal name 'Cul(a)' or 'Ceola', a short form of various compound names with the first element 'ceol', ship. The modern surname, 'Cooling', may therefore derive from an Old English patronymic form of 'Cul(a)' or 'Ceola', recorded as 'Culling' in the Domesday Book of 1086, and meaning 'son of Cul(a)'. The second possible origin is locational, deriving from the place in Kent called 'Cooling', recorded as 'Culingas' in the Saxon Cartulary of 808, which is named from the Old English 'Cula' or 'Ceola', with the suffix 'ingas' meaning 'people of, kin'. Amongst the sample recordings in London is the christening of Anne Cooling, on May 19th 1823 at St. Leonard, Shoreditch. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Warner Culling, which was dated 1196, The Wiltshire Pipe Rolls, during the reign of King Richard 1, '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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