This interesting name has two possible origins. The first being a metonymic occupational name for an official, responsible for "price fixing in markets", deriving from the Middle English or the Old French "pris" meaning "price". The surname from this source is first recorded in the latter half of the 13th Century. An alternative spelling "Prys" appears in the 1320, (Fine Court Rolls of Sussex). The name may also be a patronymic, with a reduced form of the Welsh element "ap" meaning "son of", plus the personal name Rhys, from the Old Welsh "Ris", "fiery warrior". Hence ap Rhys, Apprise, Aprice (1492) - Pembroke Records, and eventually, the full contraction to Price. the mosern surname can be found as Price or Pyrce. One Launcelot Pryce was an early emigrant to the colonies of the New World, leaving London on the "Bonaventure" in January 1634, bound for Virginia. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Robert Price, which was dated 1297, The Fine Court Rolls of Essex, during the reign of King Edward 1, "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.