This is an English locational surname. It originates from any or all of the places called Shillingford, specifically in the counties of Devon, where there are two examples one near Exeter, and the other Bampton, or Oxfordshire where there is one. In all cases the place name seems to appear in Domesday Book, or if not, very shortly afterwards. Howver the surname is much later and possibly Elizabethan. Locational surnames are usually ones given either to the lord of the manor and his descendants or more usually to people who for whatever reason left their original homesteads to move somewhere else. The easiest way to identify such people was to call them after their original homes, a practice which as a nickname still continues today. The explanation for the name is one of the longest in the English Place Names book, but unfortunately it does not provide an answer! It is may be tribal and translate as "The ford of the Scillinga people," with Scillinga being from the Olde English word "sciell" meaning a fast flowing or noisy river. Fords or shallow river crossings are not normally associated with the fast flowing parts of a river, but otherwise the explanation is logical. An early example of the name recording is that of Charles Shillingford who married Mary Pryor at Canterbury Cathedral, Kent, in 1663.

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