Recorded in several spellings including Yarnton, Yarranton and Yarrington, this is an English locational surname. It originates from Yarnton, a village near to the city of Oxford in Oxfordshire. The name means 'Manor house farm', from the pre 9th century Olde English 'earding-tun'. The village is one of the earliest ever recorded with 'aet Erdintune' appearing in the Coded Diplomatici Saxonicum for the year 714, at the very dawn of surviving written history in England. In the famous Domesday Book of 1086 the village is recorded as Erdentuna, and as Erdington in 1236. The 'modern' spelling is a slang form of Erdington, which occurred as the language and dialects changed in the Middle Ages from the official Norman-French following the Conquest of 1066, through and including the remnants of Olde English, to the Middle English, and later Standard English of the 17th century. As to when the surname was first recorded is unclear. Locational names were usually given after people left their original homes, to move somewhere else. In this case known examples in the marriage licence lists of Greater London include Elizabeth Yarrington who married John Ward in 1626, and Dorothy Yarnton who married Arthur Croom in 1628.

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