Recorded as Southcoat, Southcoate, Southcoot and Southcoatt and the cognates Southcomb, Southcombe, Southcome, Suthcom, Sowthcumbe and others, this is an early English surname. It is habitational and originates from some place which such as Southcott or Southcot, villages in the counties of Cornwall, Devon and Berkshire, or from living at a 'sut cott' that is to say a house to the south of the main village, or at a 'sut-cwm', a valley or combe to the south of the village. The village of Southcott, but originally 'Sudcote,' in Berkshire, is first recorded in the famous Domesday Book of 1086. We have not been able to establish the actual site of any village called South Combe or similar, but if it existed it was almost certainly in Devonshire, the surname being very well recorded there from Elizabethan times. Early examples of the recordings taken from surviving church registers recordings include Humfry Sowthcumbe, whose daughter Besse, was christened at Iddesleigh Church, Devon, on August 28th 1569, Richard Southcott of Devonshire, in the register of students of Oxford University in 1586, Lewes Southcome of Rose Ash, Devon, on March 17th 1612, whilst on December 10th 1782. Charles Southcoat married Faith Hemsley at Rufforth Church, near Wetherby, Yorkshire. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Geoffrey de Suthcot. This was dated 1229, in the Curia Regis Rolls for the county of Kent. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

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