This interesting surname is of Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse origin, and is a locational name deriving from places called Ingleton in Co. Durham and the West Riding of Yorkshire. The placenames derive from either the Olde English pre 7th Century personal name "Ingeld" or "Ingwald", or the Old Norse "Ingialdr" or "Ingolfr". These given names are composed of the Old Norse element "Ing", the name of a minor Norse god ssociated with fertility, with either "geld" or "gialdr", tribute, "wald", rule, or "ulfr", wolf. The second element of the placename is the Olde English "tun", settlement, enclosure, village. Ingleton in Durham is recorded as "Ingeltun" in circa 1050, in the "Historia" of St. Cuthbert, while Ingleton in Yorkshire appears as "Inglestune" in the Domesday Book of 1086. The surname is first recorded towards the end of the 14th Century, as below, and examples from Yorkshire Church Registers include the christening of Thomas, son of Jervase Ingleton, at Giggleswick, on May 18th 1571, and the marriage of Gervasius Ingletonne to Anna Carr on June 13th 1574, also at Giggleswick. A Coat of Arms granted to an Ingleton family depicts, on a silver shield, a black chevron engrailed between three black tuns, from the bunghole of each a flame issuing proper. The Crest is a hand issuing from a cloud in fesse pointing to a serpent proper. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Ellota de Ingleton, which was dated 1379, in the "Poll Tax Returns of Yorkshire", during the reign of King Richard 11, known as "Richard of Bordeaux", 1377 - 1399. 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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