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Question
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I just came across your web site while doing some research on my family name which just happens to be Coulston! I would be interested in knowing if this community is indeed named after a person by the name of Coulston. Although my grandfather Robert Coulston was born in Northern Ireland, there seem to be very few families by that name in all of N.Ireland and I have no idea as to where his family originated from.
In any case, I found your web page interesting and was a bit curious as to how the community had come to be called \"Coulston\".
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Question asked on
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10 December 2004
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Answer
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With a very few modern exceptions, Saltaire in Yorkshire named after its founder, the industrialist and philanthropist Titus Salt, comes to mind, people's surnames are taken from place-names rather than the other war round. Most English settlements had been founded in Saxon times, often taking their name from a personal name, and surnames did not come into general use until the 13th and 14th centuries.
Coulston was named after a Saxon and the meaning is Cufel's farm (tun). It is possible that your distant ancestor came from there around 600 years ago and took the name of the place in which he was born.
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Bibliography
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The Place-names of Wiltshire, by J.E.B. Gover, Allen Mawer, and F.M. Stenton, C.U.P., 1939
