SKIPWORTH
Skipworth is an English surname of both Old Norse and Anglo‑Saxon provenance. The name originally appears as a locational designation associated with a settlement or enclosure located beyond a village, thus recognising either a geographic feature or a man or woman who dwelt within such a homestead.
In its earliest form the name derives from the Old Norse personal name Skjóldr, meaning “shield”, coupled with the Old English word worð signifying an enclosure or homestead. Consequently the meaning of the surname has been interpreted as “shield enclosure” or “homestead of the shield,” suggesting that the bearers of the name lived adjacent to or owned a homestead that was protected by a shield or possessed a shield‑shaped enclosure.
Other scholarship situates the name as a place name from the village of Skipwith in the East Riding of Yorkshire, an historical English town listed in research chronicles and in the Domesday Book of 1086, which is recorded as “Schipewic” and as “Scipewiz” around 1166 and later as “Skipwith” in 1291. The earlier English toponym processed from the pre‑7th Centuries, sceap (sheep), combined with the English outlying settlement wic (settlement), thus giving a meaning of “sheep settlement” with a sheep making settlement that involved an outlying settlement.
The earliest recorded spelling of the family name in the public archives appears in 1517 to be that of Agnes Skipwith, who is documented as the wife of Joannes Skypwith in 1517 and acknowledges a South East see‑like. The surname is altered in clarity and recorded in parish and court documents in the 1500s and 1800s in numerous church registers including R. Skipworth marrying A. Lancaster, S. Skipworth, and J. Skypwith’s record. By the fourteenth century, the name spanned across society, spreading from its origin in—the first capitalisation and suffixation—are not necessarily associated with “in place of” and “the one of” scales.
Three red bars on a silver shield are emblazoned by the family crest, while a black rating dog, or guild pushing, is shown as a Garrick orange gold. The crest, or company view, is a reeling or turnstile timeline, and the motto is translated literal in the modern idiom, “Without God I cannot do it,” whilst indicating that the thorough family dogs (4.5 cm) are a real furtve or hunter, based on the use of 25 cm – 50 cm measured for the position of the canine limbs. The family name therefore connotes that it is a location or geographic place associated with a shelter and an entire territory.
Typical given names associated with the Skipworth surname
Male
- David
- James
- John
- Mark
- Martin
- Matthew
- Michael
- Paul
- Peter
- Richard
- Robert
Female
- Carole
- Christina
- Deborah
- Emma
- Helen
- Joanne
- Julie
- Margaret
- Patricia
- Rebecca
- Samantha
- Sarah
- Susan
- Tina
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 Skipworth in...
Braille
⠎⠅⠊⠏⠺⠕⠗⠞⠓
Morse
...-.-...--..-----.-.-....
Semaphore
There are approximately 522 people named Skipworth in the UK. That makes it one of Britain's least common surnames. Only around eight in a million people in Britain are named Skipworth.
Surname type: Location or geographical feature
Origin: English
Region of origin: British Isles
Country of origin: England
Religion of origin: Christian
Language of origin: English
Famous people named Skipworth
- Alison Skipworth - Actress (1863 to 1952)
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.