Salt - Name

This name is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is an English locational surname from the town of Salt in Staffordshire, recorded as "Selte" in the Domesday Book of 1086, and as "Salt" in the 1167 Pipe Rolls of that county. The name derives from the Olde English pre 7th Century "selte" meaning a salt-pit. At the beginning of the century there were salt works within two miles of the town. Locational surnames were usually acquired by a local landowner, or by the lord of the manor, and 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. The surname from this source is first recorded at the end of the 12th Century (see below). One William de Saut appears in the 1203 Staffordshire Pleas Rolls and an Alyce Salte in the Burial Records of St. James' Church, Clerkenwell, London, dated 1599. William Salt (1805 - 1863) was a Staffordshire antiquary who made archaelogical collections from the county. He was also a member of the Royal Society of Literature. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Nicholas de (of) Salt, which was dated 1199, witness in the "Assize Court Rolls of Staffordshire", during the reign of King Richard 1, known as "The Lionheart", 1189 - 1199. 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.