This very unusual name is of Anglo-Saxon origin and is a locational surname from a "lost" place called "Scadding" or "Shading" in East Anglia, thought to have been situated near the place called "Shading field" in Suffolk. The latter is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Scadenafella". An estimated seven to ten thousand villages and hamlets are known to have disappeared since the 14th Century in Britain, mostly due to the enforced clearing of such minor places for sheep pasture during the 14th Century. The name means "the boundary valley", derived from the Old English pre 7th Century "sceacd", boundary, with "denu", valley. Unusually the first recording of the name (see below) is from Ireland, where there was also a place called "Scandanstoun" near Clonmel, established by English emigrants of the name, probably soldiers. One Ann Scading was christened on August 31st 1636 at Horseheath in Cambridgeshire and William Joseph Scadeng was baptised on April 12th 1835 at St. John's, Bermondsey, London. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Martin Scaden, which was dated 1299, in the Tipperary Justiciary Rolls, during the reign of King Edward 1, 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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