Recorded in many forms including Screwton, Scrouton, Scruton, Scrowton, Scroyton, Scrowston and Scrowson, this is an English surname. It is locational and originates either from a place called Scruton near Bedale, in North Yorkshire, or from a now "lost" medieval village in the same county. The modern Scruton is recorded in the famous Domesday Book of 1086 as "Scurvetone", and later as Scuruentune in the Register of the Knight Templars of England, in 1185. The name translates as "Scurfa's farm", a Norse byname with the Old English pre 7th century word "tun", meaning a farm or settlement. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, the name of a Scandinavian jarl or noble is recorded as Scurfa. Locational surnames were acquired especially by those former inhabitants of a place who had moved to another area, and were thereafter best identified by the name of their birthplace. Early examples of the surname recording taken from surviving church registers of the late medieval period include the marriage of John Scruton and Catharine Burnard at Aldborough near York, on November 6th 1575, and John Scrowston who married Alice Haggett at North Burton in East Yorkshire on May 28th 1592. The first recorded spelling of the family name is that of Johanna de Scruton. This was dated 1379, in the Poll Tax returns for Yorkshire, during the reign of King Richard 11nd, 1377 - 1399. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

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