Recorded as Dillaway, Diloway, Dillway, Dilawey, Dilliway and Dilleway, and all quite rare, this is almost certainly an English surname. If so it is or at least was, locational from a now "lost" medieval village probably called Dilloway, although no such place is recorded in the known gazetters of the British Isles in the last three centuries. Some five thousand medieval places have disappeared since the medieval period and the reasons they disappeared are as varied as the surnames that they left behind. They include The Great Plagues which swept through Europe between the years 1310 and 1665 at times killing half the population in some areas, the famines which followed, as well as land drainage over much of the country, continuing changes in agricultural practices which themselves decimated the need for farmer workers, and natural disasters such as coastal erosion which continues today. The name is from the pre 6th century "dill-o-weg" and translates as "The road (weg) where the dill herb grows". The surname is well recorded in surviving registers of the city of London and the surrounding area, and xxamples of recordings include Mary Dilleway who married Jonathon Hurst at St Clement Danes on July 2nd 1769. Joseph Dilloway who married Frances Mason at St Martins in the Field, Westminster, on July 28th 1788, and faraway in the north of England, Hannah Dilloway who married Christopher Murphy at Manchester Cathedral, on August 1st 1846. 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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