1,439 Global REDDIN Family Members

REDDIN Family History

Recorded in several ways including Reading, Reddin, and Redding, this long-established surname is English. It is either a topographical name from residence in a clearing, from the Olde English pre 7th Century "ryding", clearing, or a locational name from the parish and town of Reading in Berkshire. Recorded as "Readingum" in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, dated 872, and as "Reddinges" in the Domesday Book of 1086, the place was so called from the Olde English "Readingas", the people of Read(a), a byname formed from "read", red, given to one with auburn hair, or a ruddy complexion. Topographical surnames were among the earliest created, since both natural and man-made features in the landscape provided obvious and convenient means of identification in the small communities of the Middle Ages, and locational names were chiefly given as a means of identification to those who left their birthplace to settle elsewhere...