This famous surname spelt in many forms including Pain, Payn, Payne, Paine, Paines, Paynes, Pagan, Pagon and Fitzpayn, is medieval English but of French and ultimately Roman origins. It derives from the pre 7th century personal name "Pagen", itself from the word "paien" and the earlier Latin "paganus". The original meaning was a villager or rustic, and later a heathen! Curiously this unusual background does not seem to have proved a bar to its popularity as a Christian name. In England it is first recorded in the famous Domesday Book of 1086, with that of Edmund filius Pagen of Somerset, whilst Reginoldus filius Pain appears in the Knight Templars (Crusader) register of Lincolnshire in 1185. Other recordings taken from early surviving rolls and charters include Jone Pane of Worcester in 1190, Stephen Paynes of London, in the Patent Rolls of 1230, John Pagan of Worcester, in the Hundred Rolls of 1275, and Roberd le Fitzpayn of Lancashire in 1305. Amongst the earliest recordings of colonists in the New World is that of Susanna Pain, the daughter of Robert and Elisabeth Pain. She was baptised in the parish of St. Michael's, Barbados, on August 5th 1678. A coat of arms associated with the family name was granted on January 12th 1586 by Queen Elizabeth 1st (1558 - 1603). It has the blazon of a gold shield, charged with three golden heraldic roses on a bend engrailed between two cotises. 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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