This is an ancient English locational surname from a place now called Badby in the county of Northamptonshire. The original village name translated as Badda's fort, with Badda being an early personal name for a famous Ancient British warrior, one who was associated with a number of forts including Badbury in Dorset, and Badbury in Wiltshire. Badby itself was originally recorded as Baddanburg in the famous Anglo-Saxon Chronicles of 744 a.d.. The later suffix change to -by is a form of the Danish byr meaning a farm or settlement, suggesting that the village came under Dane Law in the 9th century. Recordings of the surname as Badby suggest that this was manorial, and if so the original name holders were probably the lords of the manor of Badby. Biographical reports on the surname relating to the county of Suffolk state that a family called Badby and formerly from Essex (?) lived at Bury St Edmunds in the time of King Henry V111th, (1510 - 1547). This may have referred to a Thomas Badby, whose grandaughter Dorothy was the second wife of Sir Ambrose Jermyn of Rushbrooke in Suffolk. Dorothy died in 1594 in the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1st (1558 - 1603).

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