This very unusual patronymic surname is believed to be Swiss-Italian, but may also possibly be of Scandinavian-German derivation. The most likely origination is a developed form of the ancient personal name "Arthur", which appears in some sixty spellings throughout Europe, including the short forms Atur, Astur, Tuer and Turin, which also happens to be the name of the Italian city, and a fruitful source of locational names in its own right. The second source is French-Alpine job-descriptive, and derives from "tuer(e)", a merchant or grower of edible nuts, an important medieval occupation. The situation is further complicated by the fact that all early recordings are Germanic, in which the surname appears in several forms, including: Tueringer (1623); Thueren, a patronymic (1729); and Thuerenau, locational (1780). In addition, Italian surnames are notorious both for poor recordings and hereditary "flexibility", leading to variant spellings of the name within the same family from successive generations. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Eva Amalia Tueren, which was dated January 7th 1721, christened at Minden, Germany, during the reign of Charles V1, Holy Roman (German) Emperor, 1711 - 1740. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.