Recorded in many spelling forms including Board, Boards, Boardman, Border, Boord, Borde, Laborde, Bordes, Bordas, Bordis, Bourdel, and many others, this is a surname which may be either of Olde English or French origins. If the former it derives from the pre 7th Century word "bord", meaning a plank of wood, and as such was an occupational surname for a maker of planks and boards, whilst the latter derives from "bordure", a word which described the edge of a village or from "borde", meaning a little house of timber standing alone. Natural and man-made features in the landscape provided obvious and convenient means of identification in the small communities of the Middle Ages, and consequently gave rise to many surnames. The final "s", when attached to a topographical name, denotes "dweller at (that place)". Early examples of the surname recording include: Robert Bourde in the Subsidy Rolls of Somerset, dated 1323, Anne Bordish, who married Roger Willson at the church of St Katherines by the Tower (of London) on December 7th 1609, Jeanne La Borde, who married Jean Siot at Montaut, Basses-Pyrenees, on July 5th 1634, Pierre Bordes, a French Huguenot refugee, whose son Pierre was christened at the French Church, Glasshouse Street, in the city of London, on February 21st 1727, and William Bordis, whose son William was christened at Endell Street Lying in Hospital, Holborn, on August 23rd1776. The first recorded spelling of the family name is believed to be that of Nicholas Borde. This was dated 1230, in the "Pipe Rolls" of the county of Dorset, during the reign of King Henry 111 of England , 1216 - 1272. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

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