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I've always been interested in the origin of the surname BUGDEN and some years ago I sent off for one of those family-name certificates that you see advertised. Here are its main points: "The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of William de Buggenden, which was dated 1195, The Lincolnshire Pipe Rolls, during the reign of King Richard I (the Lionheart), 1189-1199" "This unusual name is of English locational origin, from either of the places called 'Buckden' in Huntingdonshire and in West Yorkshire. The place in Huntingdonshire is first recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as 'Bugedene', and means either, 'the valley of the Bucca' or 'the valley of the bucks', the derivation being from the Old English 'Bucca' or 'bucc', male deer plus 'denn', a dene or valley. 'Buckden' in West Yorkshire is first recorded as 'Buckedon' in 1202 and means 'valley of the bucks'. For many years there was a residence for the bishops of Lincoln at Buckden in Huntingdonshire known locally as 'Bugden', and one Thomas Barlow (1607-1691), then bishop of Lincoln, spent so much of his time there that he became known as 'Bishop of Bugden'." The Norman-French 'de' in front of some of the earlier spellings of the name may have led some people to conclude that Bugden was of Norman origin but I imagine that the clerks who wrote down surnames for tax and census purposes were probably Norman themselves and simply meant to say 'from' as in the above example, 'William from Bugden' or 'William of Bugden' as people sometimes said in English. In early Norman times, many English people did not have proper surnames and these came into use to assist in the process of taxation. To the best of my knowledge (so far) my branch of the family lived on the Wilts/Dorset border for a very long time and I'm interested in seeing if they originally came from somewhere else or, whether the name BUGDEN evolved separtely in different areas. Nicholas Bugden 19/05/2003