Recorded in many spellings including Edmondson, Edmonston, Edmonstone, Edmyndson, Edmundson, Edmunston, Edmenson and Edminson, this is a surname of English and sometimes Scottish origins. However spelt it is almost certainly a patronymic form of the medieval given name Edmund, itself from the Old English pre 7th century male personal name Eadmund. This was a compound of the elements "ead" meaning prosperity or fortune, and "mud", meaning protection. In Medieval England and also France, the name was frequently given in honour of an East Anglian king known as St. Edmund The Martyr. He was killed by pagan Danish-Viking invaders in the year 869 a.d. The personal name appears as Aedmundus and Edmundus in the famous Domesday Book of 1086, whilst the surname first emerges in the early 13th Century. An early example is that of Nicholaus Edmundus, in the Curia Regis rolls of Cambridgeshire, in the year 1210. Later examples showing the development of the patronymic are those of John Edmundson in the register of the freemen of the city of York, in 1414, Richard Edmyndson in the records of the manor of Sheffield, also Yorkshire, in 1558, and William Edmonstone who married Francis Wicks at Christ Church, Spitalfields, in the city of London, on November 8th 1802. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop", often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

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