There are two possible origins of this interesting name, the first being that it is a nickname for a carefree person, deriving from the Middle English "aisy", meaning, untroubled, at ease, itself, from the old French "aisie", ease, and the Latin "adiacens", convenient. However Easy may also be a dialectal variant of the locational name "Eastrea", from a place so called in Cambridgeshire, which is suggested by the abundance or recordings in that county, and neighbouring counties Suffolk and Bedford. The derivation in this instance is the Old English pre 7th Century "east", east, with "eg", and island. Amongst the sample recordings in Cambridgeshire are the marriages of John Easey and Ann Barret on October 23rd 1711, at Gamlingay, and of Sarah Easey and James Wenham on November 29th 1748 at Toft. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of William Easie (christening), which was dated February 20th 1617, London Stanton, Cambridgeshire, during the reign of King James 1 of England and Scotland, 1603 - 1625. 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.