Recorded in many spelling forms including Tabor, Taborre, Tamburo, Tamburi, (Italy), Tabour, Tabourel, Tabouret, Tabourin, Tabourier, (France), Tabor, Taber, Tavor, and Tabrett in England, this is a surname of French origins. It derives from the pre-medieval word 'tabour' meaning a drum or tambourine, and is therefore occupational for a maker or player of these instruments. It may also have been a military status name for a musician, a position of some considerable importance when armies marched to the sound of the drums. The name is a very early recording in England, where it has almost certainly had two 'entries'. The first would have been at the time of the Norman Conquest of 1066, when French was adopted as the first language of England (and Scotland), and remained so for three centuries. The second was in relation to the Huguenots, when at least fifty thousand people of mainly French protestant origins, fled to Britain. This was in the period between 1580 and 1750, but specifically after the repeal of the Edict of Nates in 1685. The earliest known example of the surname recording anywhere in the world is that of Suein Taber, in the 1185 Pipe Rolls of the county of Warwickshire, and slightly later Adam Tabur of the county of Stafford, in 1204. Later recordings from surviving church registers in Italy, France and England, include Ursula Tabor of Schenna, Bolzano, Italia, on July 1st 1733, Nicholas Tabouret, a witness at Anderny, Department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, France, on August 25th 1780, and John Tabrett, a witness at the church of St John, the Evangelist, Westminster, on April 17th 1870.

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