This name, with variant spellings Wilde, Whild(e), Wyld(e) and Wyle(e)s, has two possible origins, the first being a nickname for a high-spirited, rather boisterous person deriving from the Old English pre 7th Century 'Wilde' meaning wild and undisciplined. Alternatively, Wild may have originated as a topographical name for someone who lived by a patch of uncultivated land. The derivation, in this case, is from the Old English 'wilde' i.e., wild, in the sense of 'waste'. The surname from the former source was first recorded in the latter part of the 11th Century, (see below). One, William le Wilde appears in the 1177 'Pipe Rolls of Leicestershire' and a Henry le Wylde, witness, in the 1236 'Fine Court Rolls of Essex'. William de (of) Wilde, recorded in 'The Pipe Rolls of Sussex' dated 1200, was the first namebearer from the latter source. William Wild, aged thirty embarked from London on the ship 'Elizabeth' bound for New England on April 17th 1635, was one of the earliest recorded namebearers to settle in America. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Uluricus Wilde, which was dated 1086 - 'The Domesday Book of Lincolnshire', during the reign of King William 1, 'The Conqueror', 1066 - 1087. 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.

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