What's In A Name? Hollingsworth
In the years following the ascent of William of Normandy to the throne of England in 1066, census enumerators scoured the country-side of the British kingdom in an effort to compile the first of many censuses in order to document the population of that country. In every village they encountered any number of Johns, Williams, Roberts, etc., all bearing a single given name. The enumerators began to make notations next to the name to denote a specific individual as a means of avoiding confusion. This was the origin of most of our surnames. John who lived on a brook ultimately became John Brook, John who was the son of Robert became known as John Robertson, and John who herded sheep might have became known either as John Shepherd.
Near the town of Mottram was an unusual group of farmers. They built fences and enclosures, not from felled timber or split logs, but from living trees in this case holly trees. One of the first of these farmers to be identified in the records was John dhollywarth with holly representing the tree and warth meaning wall, division, or sub-division, the modern form of the word being ward.
Modern English hedge planted with holly trees
With many centuries of alteration and change, the name now appears in standard form most commonly as Hollingworth, Hollingsworth, Hollandsworth, and Hollinsworth.
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