This uncommon name is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and a locational surname deriving from the place called Daventry in Northamptonshire; the surname, found as Daintree, Daintrey and Daintry, represents the accepted local pronunciation of the placename. Daventry is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Daventrei", and in the 1199 Feet of Fines of the county as "Dauintre", and the name means "Dafa's tree", derived from the Olde English pre 7th Century personal name "Dafa" (perhaps from the verb "gedafen", fitting), with "treow", tree. Locational surnames, such as this, were acquired by the lord of the manor, and local landowners, and especially by those former inhabitants who had moved to another area, and were thereafter best identified by the name of their birthplace. Early examples of the name include: John de Davyntre (1273, Huntingdonshire); Gilbert Dantre (1369, London); and Richard Dawntre, rector of Intwood, Norfolk, in 1482. The marriage of Thomas Daintree and Elizabeth Stocker was recorded in Fen Drayton, Cambridgeshire, on June 6th 1637. The Coat of Arms most associated with the family depicts a silver bend between two gold cotises engrailed on a black shield. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Philip de Dauintrie, which was dated 1162, in the "Pipe Rolls of Kent", during the reign of King Henry 11, known as "The Builder of Churches", 1154 - 1189. 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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