Sarpa

Male
CPL
4 of 5

Discussion of the name

Sarpa is a masculine Old English name in the form of a byname from the adjective scearpa (‘sharp, keen, active, brave’). Von Feilitzen (1937: 351) was right to reject an earlier suggestion (Forssner 1916: 223) that DB’s spelling Sarpo represented the otherwise unrecorded short form of a Continental Germanic name, but might have added that Domesday spellings in –o which originated in Exon, as Sarpo did, commonly stood for names in –a.

Scearpa is found as a genuine byname in the name of a man who gave property to the monks of Canterbury in 1026 (S 1916; Tengvik 1938: 355), but it is otherwise unrecorded as a personal name before 1066.

Bibliography

Forssner 1916: Thorvald Forssner, Continental-Germanic Personal Names in England in Old and Middle English Times (Uppsala: K. W. Appelbergs, 1916)

S: P. H. Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters: An Annotated List and Bibliography, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks 8 (London, 1968), revised by S. Kelly, R. Rushforth et al., The Electronic Sawyer: Online Catalogue of Anglo-Saxon Charters, published online through Kemble: The Anglo-Saxon Charters Website, currently at http://www.esawyer.org.uk/about/index.html

Tengvik 1938: Gösta Tengvik, Old English Bynames, Nomina Germanica 4 (Uppsala: Almqvist and Wiksells, 1938)

von Feilitzen 1937: Olof von Feilitzen, The Pre-Conquest Personal Names of Domesday Book, Nomina Germanica 3 (Uppsala: Almqvist and Wiksells, 1937)

Forms of the name

Spellings in Domesday Book: Sarpo

Forms in modern scholarship:

  von Feilitzen head forms: Sarpo

  Phillimore edition: Sharp

  Alecto edition: Sarpo

Distribution map of property and lordships associated with this name in DB

List of property and lordships associated with this name in DB

Holder 1066

Shire Phil. ref. Vill DB Spelling Holder 1066 Lord 1066 Tenant-in-Chief 1086 1086 Subtenant Fiscal Value 1066 Value 1086 Value Conf. Show on Map
Somerset 25,20 Exford Sarpo Sarpa 'of Exford' - William de Moyon - 0.09 0.05 0.05 A Map
Totals