Recorded in many forsm as shown below, this is an English surname. It can be either occupational, and a name for a shoemaker, or locational from a place called Sutterfield or similar. The derivation is from the pre 7th century Old English word "sutere", and the Latin "sutor" meaning a shoemaker. Occupational surnames were amongst the earliest to be created but did not usually become heriditary until a son followed a father into the same line ofd business. There is no such place recorded as Sutterfield, so either this is a 'lost' village name, or it is a corruption of something else. Many names do originate from 'lost' villages of which the surname may well be the only public record in the 20th century. Not surprisingly the occupational surname was one of the earliest crerated with as examples Nicholas le Soutere in Sussex in 1263, and Richard Suter in the Subsidy Rolls of the same county in 1327. In the modern idiom the spellings include Soutar, Souter, Souttar, Sowter, Sutter, Sewter, Suter, Sutor, and Sutters. This spelling is fairly widespread in Scotland, and Thomas Urquhart relates as a tradition in circa 1660 that the two promontories of Cromarty, known as the "Soutars", were the work stools of two giants who supplied their comrades with shoes and buskins. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Lewinus Sutor, which was dated 1066, in Hampshire. This was during the reign of King William 1st known in later history as The Conqueror, 1066 - 1087. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

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