This rare and intriguing name is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is one of the earliest recorded locational surnames. It derives from the place in Hampshire called Dummer, which is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Dummere", and in the Hampshire Pipe Rolls of 1196 as "Dunmere". The placename means "the lake or mere on or by a hill or down", derived from the Old English pre 7th Century "dun", hill, down, mountain, and "mere", lake, mere, although there is no lake at this location nowadays. Locational surnames were acquired mostly by those former inhabitants of a place who had moved to another area, and were thereafter best identified by the name of their birthplace. The modern surname from this source can be found as Dummer, Dummere and Dumper. The marriage of George Dumper and Alice Emes was recorded at St. Thomas the Apostle, London on April 6th 1584. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Henry de Dumera, which was dated 1115, in the "Book of Winton, Hampshire", during the reign of King Henry 1, known as "The Lion of Justice", 1100 - 1135. 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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