WORTHING
Worthing is an English locational surname that originated as a name for individuals who came from or resided in the town of Worthing in West Sussex. The place name itself is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Ordinges and later in 1288 as Worthinges. The earliest etymology, according to Ekwall’s Dictionary of English Place Names, traces the name back to an Old English personal name, possibly Wurps, meaning “Wurps’s people”. The suffix -ing, common in Anglo‑Saxon toponymy, denotes association or belonging, so the place was understood as the settlement belonging to the people of Wurps or the enclosure of an individual called Worþ.
From the medieval period onward, the surname Worthing was usually applied to those who had left the town and settled elsewhere. The most reliable recorded instances of the name and its neighbouring variants are found in Sussex parish registers: a christening witness, Thomas Worthinge, appears in Brighton on 22 September 1590; Melior Wathen is recorded at St Peters Church, Chichester, on 12 March 1599; and later, Mitchell Worthen is mentioned at St Andrews, Holborn, on Boxing Day 1621. In the 17th century a woman named Alice Worthing married John Lucke at St Peters Church, Pauls Wharf, on New Years Day 1657. These entries demonstrate that, even in the early modern era, bearers of the name were dispersing into surrounding towns and the capital.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, many individuals bearing the surname migrated beyond England. By the 1700s the name had become established in overseas colonies, and it continues to appear in contemporary records worldwide. In the United Kingdom the greatest concentration remains in the South‑East, with significant clusters in West Sussex, Sussex, and neighbouring counties such as Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Wiltshire and Hampshire. According to the nationwide COBRA genealogy database the surname is the most common in the East and South of England, particularly in Sussex where the origin of the name retains an association with the town of Worthing.
Australia has emerged as the second principal country in which the surname is common. Many Australian Worthings are descendants of Anglo‑Saxon migrants who left England or Ireland prior to the nineteenth century. There is also a notable presence of the name among some Indigenous Australian communities, though the precise historic pathways are less well documented. In recent years the name has attracted renewed interest from genealogists and the wider public, contributing to a modest but steady rise in its popularity.
Several historical variants of the surname are recorded, reflecting dialectal differences and orthographic changes over time. These include Wathen, Worthen, Wathon, Wurtung, Wurtunge, Werting, Wortham and Wortin. Some of these forms are also found in Irish contexts, where ancestors bearing the Anglicised versions of the surname O'Worthy and its derivatives have been documented. In modern usage the spelling Worthing remains the predominant form, while the variants are today occasionally seen in historical archives, deeds and parish records.
Because the surname is rooted in a specific place, it carries an implicit sense of identity tied to the local landscape. The toponymic origin—deriving from the Old English word worþ meaning an enclosure—links the name to the ancient earthworks and manorial boundaries that once characterised the area. The continuity of the surname across centuries, and its spread from a single village to towns, cities and overseas colonies, reflects the enduring strength and resilience of those families who carry the name Worthing.
Typical given names associated with the Worthing surname
Male
- David
- Dennis
- John
- Lewis
- Michael
- Mike
- Paul
- Philip
- Robert
- Scott
- Shane
- William
Female
- Ann
- Elizabeth
- Helen
- June
- Patricia
- Rachel
- Sarah
- Susan
- Teresa
- 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 Worthing in...
Braille
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Morse
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Semaphore
There are approximately 407 people named Worthing in the UK. That makes it one of Britain's least common surnames. Only around six in a million people in Britain are named Worthing.
Famous people named Worthing
- Frank Worthing - Scottish actor (1866 to 1910)
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.