Recorded in many spellings including Spradbery, Spradbury, Spradberrie, Spreadbury, Sprattbury, and even Spradbrow, this is an English locational surname. It is claimed to originate from the village and parish of Sprotborough, near the town of Doncaster. Being locational it is usually a 'from' name. That is to say a name that was given to somebody after they left their original village to move spmewhere else. Spelling over the centuries being at best indifferent, and local accents very thick, lead to the develpment as with this surname, of 'sounds like' spellings. Dialectal transposition as it is known, was rife in certain parts of the British Isles, and particularly Yorkshire where for instance the town of Thirsk was known as Tresk, and Slaithwaite in the Colne Valley near Huddersfield, as 'Sloughat'. An early example of the surname recording taken from the surviving church registers of the city of London is that of Henry Sprattberry. He was baptised at St. Michaels Cornhill, in the city of London, in 1665. The meaning of the name is probably Sprot's hill, with Sprot being an early baptismal name meaning a branch or twig, and burh, a hill. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Thomas de Sprotburghe. This was dated 1298, in the Pipe Rolls of Yorkshire. during the reign of King Edward 1st, known as The Hammer of the Scots 1272 - 1308. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

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