Recorded in many forms as shown below, this is an English surname. It is claimed by all the various dictionaries of surnames that it derives not from a place name, but from the Olde English pre 7th century personal name 'Stoelwierthe'. This has the literal meaning of 'place-worthy' which may seem to be a strange translation for a given name. Furthermore what we have here are the slang versions which were originally created in East Anglia, and particularly in the county of Suffolk. Early examples of the surname recording include Thomas Stalworthi in the Pinchbeck Register for Suffolk in 1285, and John Stalworthy in the Subsidy Rolls also of Suffolk in 1327. It is said that the surname without the initial "S" is not recorded until the latter half of the 16th Century, and that in the modern idiom the surname can be found as Tolladay, Tollady, Tolleday and Tolliday. Recordings of the surname from surviving English church registers include: the christening of Sara Tolleday, on December 31st 1637, at Great Waldingfield, Suffolk; the marriage of Ban Talleday and Elizabeth Bird on August 13th 1671, at Sproughton, Suffolk; and the christening of Robert, the son of Frauncis and Anne Tolliday, on October 31st 1663, at St. Dunstan's in the East, Stepney, city of London. The first recorded spelling of the family name may be that of Thomas Towlewardie. This was dated 1574, in the Suffolk Registers, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1st, known as "Good Queen Bess", 1558 - 1603. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

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