This name is of French locational origin from Tournai, Tornay or Tourny, all in Normandy. The name, in all cases, derives from the pre-Roman personal name Turnus meaning "height" or "eminence", here used in a transferred sense to describe a hill or elevated area. The surname is first recorded in England in the latter half of the 11th Century, (see below). The namebearer being a follower of William the Conqueror who was granted lands in England. One Thomas de (of) Turnay appears in the 1192 "Pipe Rolls of London" and a Richard de Turney in the Hundred Rolls of Buckinghamshire (1273). A William Turney is recorded in the Nottinghamshire Hundred Rolls (1273). In 1692, the marriage of one, Nathaniell Peacock and a Mary Turney is recorded in the Register of St. Michaels Church, Cornhill, London. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Goisfridus Tournai, a baron from Tournai, Calvados, which was dated 1086 The Domesday Book of Lincolnshire, during the reign of King William 1, "The Conqueror", 1066 - 1087. 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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