Although often confused with the more popular surname 'Kingston', and indeed they share the same meaning this surname has different origins.It is locational, of Olde English pre 7th century origins and like Kingston derive from the words 'cyne tun', which translates as 'the kings manor'. In this case the surname recorded as Kington, Kineton, Kinton, Kynton, and Kyneton, derives from the villages of 'Kington' recorded in Dorset, Warwickshire, Hereford, Worcester and Wiltshire. In pre Saxon times the country was divided into several kingdoms, and no doubt each king had several manors, or more likely 'hunting lodges', in different parts of his kingdom. The first village recording for Warwickshire is as 'Chinctuna' in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles of the year 734 a.d., and again in the 1086 Domesday Book as 'Kinton'. Like all surnames, this is later as shown below, surnames being granted either to the lord of the manor, or more usually to people who moved away from their original village, whose name then became their identification. Recordings include such examples as Robert de Kington of Oxford in 1273, and John Kynton, who married Margery Pemberton in London in 1586, and Weackham Kington, who married Sarah Armistead at St Georges chapel, Mayfair, London in 1752. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Stephen de Kington, which was dated 1272, in the Hundred Rolls of the county of Norfolk, during the reign of King Edward 1st, known as 'The hammer of the Scots', 1272 - 1307. 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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