This unusual and interesting name is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is topographical from residence by a hill overgrown with thorn-bushes. The derivation is from the Old English pre 7th Century "dun", a hill or mountain, plus "thorn", thorn-bush. The high incidence of surname recordings from the Norfolk-Suffolk area suggest that there may have been a place in that region so called; however, Dunthorn as such is no longer recorded on maps. On September 4th 1567, Annes Dunthorne and John Gase were married in Lowestoft, Suffolk, and on October 10th 1591, Margery Dunthorne married a Peter Cockerill in Castor, Norfolk. Elizabeth Dunthorne, aged 38 years, an early settler in the New World, having come over in the "Tryall", was recorded in a "Muster of the inhabitants of Virginia", in 1610. Willielmus Dunthorn, an infant, was christened in Westwick, Norfolk, on November 27th 1642. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of William Dunthorn, (town clerk of London), which was dated 1455, Register of the Fellows of Peterhouse, Cambridgeshire, during the reign of King Henry V1, "The Founder of Eton", 1422 - 1461. 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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