This interesting name has two possible origins, the first and most likely for modern day bearers of the surname being Anglo-Saxon, a locational surname deriving from the place called "Sandy" in Bedfordshire. The place is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Sandeia", and in the Bedfordshire Curia Rolls of 1203 as "Sandee"; the name means "the sandy island", derived from the Olde English pre 7th Century "sand", sand, with "eg", island, dry land in a fen, marsh. The first recording of the surname, found as Sandy, Sandey and Sanday, is from the Old Norse personal name "Sand, Sandi", a short form of various compound names with a first element that is either "sand", truth or "sandr", sand. One Adam Sandi appears in the 1332 Subsidy Rolls of Cumberland. The marriage of John Sandy and Mary Butcher was recorded at Potton in Bedfordshire, on January 22nd 1616. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Hugo de Sandeia, which was dated 1202, witness in the "Bedfordshire Assize Rolls", during the reign of King John, known as "Lackland", 1199 - 1216. 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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