Recorded in a number of spelling forms including: Goadby, Goadbie, Goadsby, and even Boadby, this is an English locational surname. It originates from the village of Goadby Harwood, a place in the midlands county of Leicestershire. This village is first recorded in the spelling of Goutebi in the famous Domesday Book of 1086. It is said that the place name may have described a Danish-Viking goat farm, or it could be that the first element is from the pre 7th century Scandanavian personal name Gauti plus "bi", the early Scandanavian name for a farm or hamlet. Goadby Harwood can be described as Franco-Danish, as it derives the latter part of the name from one William Maureward, a Norman-Frenchman, who held the manor of Goadby in the year 1316. Locational surnames are usually "from" names. That is to say names given to people after they left their original homes and moved elsewhere usually in search of work. In this case though the surname is particularly well recorded in the home county of Leicestershire, suggesting that perhaps nameholders or at least some of them, may descend from an original lord of the manor of Goadby. Examples of early surviving Leicestershire church register recordings include: Agnes Goadbie, christened at Earl Shilton on April 12th 1584, and Elizabeth Goadby, the daughter of Libbens Goadby, who was christened at Arnesby, on July 29th 1604. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

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