As with many Old English personal names such as "Alfgar", composed of the disparate elements "aelf", elf and "gari", spear, most double-barrelled names are the result of a marriage between two families, where the resulting name has no overall meaning, but the separate elements have their own meaning and derivation. In this instance, the name Gordon is of locational origin from the place of that name in Berwickshire, Scotland, or from "Gourdon" in Saone-et-Loire, France. The place in Scotland is derived from the Old Gaelic "gor", meaning large or spacious and "dun", a fort. The surname Giles has two possible sources, the first being of early medieval English origin from a medieval given name of which the original form was the Latin, "Egidus", derived from the Greek "aigidion", kid, young goat. The second source is from the Anglicized form of the Gaelic "O' Glasain", descendant of Glasan, a personal name derived from a diminutive of the Gaelic "glas", grey, green, blue. Among the sample recordings in London are the marriages of David Gordon and Jane Greegrave on March 22nd 1764 at St. James, Westminster, and of Robert Giles and Elizabeth Lund on December 20th 1772 at St. Mary's Marylebone. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Richer de Gordun, which was dated 1154, Records of St. Michael's Church, Kelso, Scotland, during the reign of King David 1 of Scotland, 1124 - 1153. 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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