WATERSON
Waterson is a surname of English origin that has been borne for many centuries. It is a patrilineal surname, originally used to identify the descendants of a man named Walter, a personal name of Germanic provenance meaning “ruler of the army.” The surname itself, as a patronymic, indicates a familial connection to an ancestor with that given name.
The name Walter is composed of the Germanic elements wald, meaning “rule,” and heri, meaning “army.” These elements were combined into the name that entered England in the Norman period, appearing in the forms Walt(i)er and Waut(i)er. In the normal vernacular of the Middle Ages the pronunciation tended towards “water,” reflecting one of these Norman forms.
Following the Seventeenth Crusade and the Conquest of 1066, the Normans introduced the name into England. One of the earliest documentary references is to Waterus de Cantelupo in the Danelaw, Lincolnshire, dated to approximately 1135; another is Walterus or Waterus filius Herberti, entered in the same rolls in 1154.
The surname in its early form appears in two notable entries. In 1214 a John Walter is recorded in Warwickshire, and in 1275 a Richard Wauter is noted in Worcestershire. These instances demonstrate the surname’s use in its mononymous state before the patronymic suffix became standard.
According to surviving records, the patronymic form of the name first surfaces in the late Fourteenth Century. The earliest recorded spelling of the family name, John Wauterson, dates to 1379 in the Poll Tax Returns of Yorkshire, during the reign of King Richard the First, a monarch better known as Richard of Bordeaux. This represents the initial documented instance of the surname with the patronymic suffix.
Later records show the name in various spellings. In 1495 a William Watterson was noted in the Register of the Guild of the Corpus Christi in York, and in 1588 Margaret Watterson of Cartmell appears in the Lancashire Wills of Richmond. The surname continued to be recorded in parish registers across Yorkshire in the late Sixteenth Century; for example, the christening of Dorothy, daughter of John Waterson, took place at Whixley on 17 March 1574, and the marriage of Jane Waterson to William Nelson occurred at Monk Frystone on 10 September 1594.
These records demonstrate that the surname Waterson was widely used throughout Yorkshire during the late Sixteenth Century and continued to appear in official documents thereafter. The surname is also found in Scotland, reflecting a wider British distribution. Modern bearers of the name inherit a surname that dates back to the Norman introduction of the personal name Walter into England, and that has survived in documentary form for more than eight hundred years.
Typical given names associated with the Waterson surname
Male
- Andrew
- David
- Ian
- James
- John
- Mark
- Michael
- Paul
- Richard
- Robert
Female
- Amy
- Claire
- Deborah
- Elaine
- Elizabeth
- Karen
- Kathryn
- Louise
- Margaret
- Mary
- Sarah
- Sharon
- Susan
- Wendy
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 Waterson in...
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There are approximately 1,907 people named Waterson in the UK. That makes it roughly the 4,376th most common surname in Britain. Around 29 in a million people in Britain are named Waterson.
Famous people named Waterson
- Norma Waterson - Folk musician
- Lal Waterson - Folk singer, songwriter (1943 to 1998)
- Nigel Waterson - Politician
- Alfred Waterson - Politician (1880 to 1964)
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.