Recorded as Inkpen and Inkpin, this is an English surname. It is locational from either of two villages called Inkpen in the counties of Berkshire and Devonshire. The name is apparently a combination and fusing of the pre 7th century Norse-Viking word 'ingel', a personal name which translates as 'angel,' and 'penn', an Olde English word meaning a hill, or the top of a hill. Such locational names were generally given either to inhabitants who moved voluntarily or otherwise from their village to some other place usually in search of work, or as in this first recording, to the local lord of the manor. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Richard de Ingepenne. This was dated 1255 in the Hundred Rolls of landowners of Berkshire, during the reign of King Henry 111rd of England, but known to history as 'The Frenchman', because he was born in France, 1216 - 1272. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was sometimes known as the 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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