This unusual English surname is medieval. It is a patronymic, deriving from the pre 7th century personal name or byname "Tippa", of which the meaning is uncertain. The given name is one of the earliest recorded, an example being Tipp, the son of Harding, another early given name, being recorded in the Pipe Rolls of Lincolnshire in the year 1204, before the introduction of surnames. The surname is a century later, and recorded both in Lancashire and Yorkshire, although it is in the town of Preston in Lancashire where it seems to have been most popular. In the famous Preston Guild Rolls which for several centuries registered the skilled and prosperous citizens of the area, the name in its various spellings is well recorded. It first appears as Toppyng in 1397, Typpynge in 1542, and as the modern Tipping in 1634 when "William Tipping, of Shaw, husbandman", is so registered. In the modern idiom the name has three spelling variations: Tippin, Tipping and Tippings. The first recorded spelling of the family name is believed to be that of Robert Tipping which was dated 1301 in the Subsidy Rolls of the county of Yorkshire during the reign of King Edward 1st of England, 1272-1307. Throughout the centuries surnames in every country have continued to "develop", often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

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