BASTABLE
The surname Bastable has its roots in both English and Old French. In the French language it is derived from the word bastable, meaning “a small bag or purse”, and would have been used as an occupational surname for a maker or seller of such items, or as a nickname for someone who carried a distinctive bag or purse.
Another proposed origin is locational, linked to the Devonshire town of Barnstaple or the Essex estate of Barstable Hall. The earliest Devonshire record of the place, “Beardastapol”, dates to 979, and by 1086 the Domesday Book lists it as “Barnestaple”. The name is thought to derive from the personal name Bearda combined with stapl (“post, staple”), suggesting “Bearda’s post”; an alternative theory points to the Old English barda meaning “beaked ship”, implying a post to which a warship might be moored.
The surname appears in early domestic documents; a record of Richard de Bardestapel is found in the Feet of Fines of Essex in 1219, during the reign of King Henry the Frenchman (1216‑1272). In 1165 William de Bastable is recorded as living in Suffolk, and in 1271 a Willelmus de Bastable is mentioned in Wiltshire. The earliest baptisms and academic entries include an Ede Bastable christened in St. Mary Arches, Exeter on 30 January 1561, and a William Barstable (later Bastable) who entered the Oxford University Register on 11 April 1617 and again on 30 May of that year.
In the seventeenth century the Bastable name is also found in the Munster counties of Ireland, where it appears on a will in Castleisland, County Kerry in 1670, and on a birth register in Castle Magner, County Cork in 1698. A further possible derivation noted in some sources is the Gaelic term Bastabal, meaning “castle on a peak”; the precise location associated with this meaning has not been identified.
The family’s heraldic arms consist of a red shield with a silver bend bearing three green trefoils slipped; the crest is a red griffin’s head between two gold wings erect, and the motto is “Regardez mort”.
Statistical records show that the surname is most prevalent in Australia, with more than 500 individuals registered in the 2011 Australian census, predominantly in New South Wales and the city of Sydney and Newcastle. Across the other Australian states there were additional concentrations in Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania, bringing the total Australian registration to over 2 000 in 2011. In the United Kingdom the name remains relatively uncommon; in the United States it was listed by the 2010 census for fewer than 400 people, with a dispersed distribution that favoured California, New York and Vermont. In Canada, only four individuals were recorded in the 2011 census, all in Ontario.
Variations of the surname include Bastabel, Bastabell, Bastbell, Bustable, Bustabel, Bestable and Bestabel, as well as compound forms such as Bastable‑Youles, Bastable‑Grenier, Bastable‑ening, Bustabel‑Safe, Bestabel‑Abdul, Bastabel‑Humewood and Bastabel‑Kittredge. Many Bastables who migrated to the Commonwealth countries anglicised the spelling or altered the surname entirely, for example Jacob Bastable becoming Burrell upon arrival in the United States.
Collectively, the evidence indicates that the Bastable surname is relatively rare and has maintained a modest presence across England, Ireland, Australia, the United States and Canada, with its varied origins reflecting both occupational and locational developments within the early medieval period and beyond.
Typical given names associated with the Bastable surname
Male
- Andrew
- Anthony
- David
- Gerry
- James
- John
- Mark
- Michael
- Paul
- Richard
- Robert
- Stephen
- Steven
- Tony
Female
- Alison
- Angela
- Caroline
- Claire
- Elizabeth
- Helen
- Mary
- Nicola
- Patricia
- Susan
- Tracey
Similar and related surnames
Related and similar names are generated algorithmically based on the spelling, and may not necessarily share an etymology.
How to communicate the surname Bastable in...
Braille
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Morse
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There are approximately 1,514 people named Bastable in the UK. That makes it roughly the 5,306th most common surname in Britain. Around 23 in a million people in Britain are named Bastable.
Famous people named Bastable
- Tony Bastable - Television presenter (1944 to 2007)
Names and descriptions courtesy of Wikipedia, and may contain errors. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of every famous person with this name.