This is an English locational surname. It almost certainly originates from Appleford, a village in the county of Berkshire, and one of the earliest of all recorded places in the British Isles, appearing in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles of 895 a.d. as Aeppelford and in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Apleford. It is just possible that some name holders may originate from Appleford, a hamlet in the Isle of Wight, also recorded in Domesday Book, but as Apledeforde, although we have no priven recordings. The Norman French clerics used to working in Latin or French and who compiled what was the worlds first known definitive survey of an entire country in this case England, had great difficulty with local accents and hence spellings. in both cases the village meaning is the same of a shallow river crossing, by apple trees. The first recording of the surname is probably that of Lucia de Apelforde in the Hundred Rolls of landowners of the county of Cambridge in 1273. This is an indication of how in the Middle Ages people did move considerable distances from their original homesteads after which they had been named, to establish themselves somewhere else. A second recording also from the Hundred rolls of 1273 is that of William de Appelford who appears in the same lists but for the county of Suffolk, whilst the exotically and possibly accurately named Pagan de Appelford is recorded in the Curia Regis rolls for Berkshire in 1293. He may well have been the lord of the manor of Appleford.

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