This old-established and noble surname, widespread in Northern England and Scotland, is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a locational name from a barony of the same name in the parish of Chirnside, Berwickshire, and places so called in Northumberland ("Ydinton" in the 1196 Pipe Rolls); Somerset ("Eduuintone" in the 1086 Domesday Book); and in Wiltshire ("Ethandune" in 878, recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles). The placename in Northumberland is composed of the Germanic personal name "Ida" (from "id", to work), and the Olde English pre 7th Century "-tun", settlement, while the initial element in the placename in Somerset in the Olde English female personal name "Eadwine" (from "ead", prosperity, and "wine", friend), and "-tun". In Wiltshire it means "a waste or uncultivated hill", from the Olde English "ethe", waste, and "dun", a hill, mountain. The name is first recorded in Durham in the mid 12th Century (see below). Other early examples include Adam de Edintun, who witnessed a charter by Earl Waldeve to the monks of Melrose, circa 1182, and Walter de Edynton, a Scots prisoner of war taken at Dunbar in 1296, and sent to Fotheringay Castle. William of Edington (died 1366) was bishop of Winchester and chancellor. Thomas Edington was christened on July 26th 1606, at St. Mary Madgalene, Bermondsey, London. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Aldanus de Edington, which was dated 1166, in Raine's "History and Antiquities of North Durham", during the reign of King Henry 11, known as "The Builder of Churches", 1154 - 1189. 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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