Recorded in several known spellings including Tunmore, Tunmar, Tunmer, and Tunmor, this is apparently an English surname. It has been widely recorded in for instance, the surviving church registers of the diocese of Greater London since Elizabethan times. It would seem to be locational from a place named from the Olde English pre 7th century 'tun mere', meaning the farm by the lake or marsh. However no such place or anything near to it, is to be found in any of the known gazetters of the past three centuries. This would suggest that we are dealing with a 'lost' medieval village, of which the only public reminder in the 20th century would seem to be the surname itself. Some three thousand surnames of the British Isles do originate from lost villages, of which new examples are being discovered all the time. This would seem to be another addition to the list. Early examples of the surname recording include Edward Tunmar who married Mary Lowe at St Katherines by the Tower (of London) on October 14th 1610, and David Tunmore who was christened at All Souls, Marylebone, on July 8th 1833.

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