Recorded in several forms as shown below, this is a surname of English and mainly Northern origins. It is residential and describes either a person who came from the village of Suttaby in the county of Lincolnshire, or possibly Southery in Norfolk, or who lived at a farm to the south of a main settlement. The derivation is from the Scandanavian-Viking "suthr i bi". Residential surnames were amongst the earliest to be created, as natural and man-made features in the landscape provided easily recognisable distinguishing names. The surname is early 12th century at the very begining of surnames as we know them today, and examples of the development mainly from the county of Yorkshire include John Suthiby in Subsidy Tax rolls of the year 1297, William Sothybe in the Friary Rolls of the manor of Wakefield in 1497, John Suddebe in the list of freemen of the city of York in 1516, and John Sotheby in the Hearth Tax register for the county of Suffolk in 1674. The modern surname can be found as Sotherby, Sotheby, Suddaby, Sutherby, Suttaby, Suttabee, Suttabie, Sutterby and probably others. In the church registers were have the exotic recording of Vrselow Suddabie christened at Lissington in Lincolnshire on January 10th 1570, and William Suttaby christened at St Benedicts, Lincoln, on April 4th 1686. The first recorded spelling of the family name is believed to be that of Stephen de Sottebi. This was dated 1194, in the Pipe Rolls of Yorkshire, during the reign of King Richard 1st, known as Lionheart, 1189 - 1199. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was sometimes 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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