This interesting and unique surname is of English habitational origin from "Bugthorpe", a parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, approximately ten and a half miles East of York, so called from the Old Norse byname "Buggi", a fat man, plus the Old Norse element "thorp" meaning village, or farm settlement usually of Danish origin. The place-name is recorded as "Buchetorp", "Bughetorp" in the Domesday Book 1086. Geoffrey de Bugetorp is recorded in "Testa de Neville, sive Liber Feodorum" in the period of Henry 111, (1216-1272), to Edward 1 (1272-1307). In the modern idiom the surname has many variant spellings including Buckthorp, Buckthought, Bucktharp and Buckthorpe. On May 15th 1677, at st. Marylebone, Saint Mary Street, Marylebone Road, London, a Theodocia Buckthorp married Nathanll Hubbard. Charles, son of Francis and Mary Bucktharp, was christened at Christ Church, Greyfriars, Newgate, London, on December 14th 1690. One Charles Buckthorpe married Elizabeth Eurett on December 9th 1787, at St. Giles, Cripplegate London. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Hamelin de Bugtorp, which was dated 1273, in the Hundred Rolls of Nottinghamshire, during the reign of King Edward 1, known as "The Hammer of the Scots", 1272 - 1307. 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.