This surname is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a locational name from any of the various places named with the Olde English pre 7th Century "ryge", rye, "rygen", of rye, and "dun", hill, mountain. These places include: Raydon in Suffolk, and Roydon in Suffolk, Norfolk and Essex. The first mentioned place was recorded as "Reindune" in the Domesday Book of 1086, and the latter three appear respectively as "Rigendun", circa 995 in the Saxon Chartulary; as "Rygedune" in Anglo-Saxon Wills Records of Norfolk, dated 1035, and as "Ruindune" in the Domesday Book for Essex. Locational names, such as this, were originally given to local landowners, and the lord of the manor, and especially as a means of identification to those who left their place of origin to settle elsewhere, and were best identified by the name of their birthplace. The surname is widely recorded in English Church Registers from the early 16th Century under the variant spellings Roydon and Royden. On May 19th 1565 Mary Royden, an infant, was christened at St. Andrew's, Holborn, London, and William Roydon, an early settler in the New World, was recorded on a list of those resident in the Barbados prior to 1678. A Coat of Arms granted to the Royden family is a chequy shield silver and red with an azure cross moline. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Thomas Roydon, which was dated April 20th 1540, marriage to Jone Hubberd, at St. Mary Woolnoth, London, during the reign of King Henry V111, known as "Bluff King Hal", 1509 - 1547. 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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