This interesting surname, recorded in English Church Registers under the variant spellings Lut(t)y, Luety, Louedey, Ludee, Ludye, etc., originated as a complimentary nickname for a trustworthy person. The derivation is from the medieval English "lawty", ultimately from the old French "leaute" meaning loyalty. One, Alan Leaute was noted in the 1256 "Chartulary of the Monastery of Ramsey, Cambridgeshire". On August 4th 1560 Willefre Luty and Margett Bracye were married in St. Mary le Bow, London and on November 10th 1581 Alice, daughter of William Lutye, was christened in St. Martin Coney Street, Yorkshire. The marriage of Maudlen Ludy to William Elliott took place in London on November 17th 1632 and on December 10th 1670 William Ludy an infant was christened in Knaresborough, Yorkshire. The surname Luddy, frequently recorded in conjunction with Ludy, is Gaelic Irish in origin, and is an Anglicized form of the old Gaelic O' Loidigh, ("male descendant of the load-carrier"), a name most frequently found in north county Cork. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Huctredus Leute, witness, which was dated 1212, in the "The Fine Court Rolls of Lancashire", during the reign of King John, known as "Lackland", 1199 - 1216. 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.