This most interesting and curious surname is of Old Scottish origin, and is a locational name from Dreghorn, a parish and village five miles west of Kilmarnock in Ayrshire. The placename is composed of the Olde English "draeg", a portage, which is the route overland used for transporting boats and supplies between navigable waterways, and the lde English "horn(a)", a river-bend; hence a portage on or by a river-bend. There is also a place called Dreghorn Castle, formerly a seat, now a school, close to Redford barracks in south west Edinburgh, which was acquired by the War Office in 1913 for military and other purposes. During the Middle Ages when migration for the purpose of job-seeking was becoming more common, people often took their former village name as a means of identification. William Dregarne held a tenement in Ayr in 1500, and Adam Dregarne was vicar pensioner of Torboltoune in the same year. Alan Dreghorn was christened on June 4th, 1671 at Galston, Ayr, while Isabell Dreghorn married William Thomson on May 28th 1705 at Kilmarnock, Ayr. A Coat of Arms, depicting a silver fesse, between two silver garbs in chief, and an antique plough in base of the last, and three green trefoils, with the motto "Utitur ante quaesitis" translates as "He uses what has been gained before", was granted to a Dreghorn/Draghorn family at Ruchhill, Scotland in 1763. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of William de Dregarn, which was dated 1446, a witness in "Records of the burgh of Prestwick in the Sherrifdom of Ayr", during the reign of King James 11, Ruler of Scotland, 1437 - 1460. 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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