Coat of Arms & Family Crests Store
 Bracy Coat of Arms / Bracy Family CrestThe surname of BRACY was of the locational group of surnames meaning 'one who came from Brace' a parish in County Hereford. It was a common surname in Strathblane, Scotland in the 18th and 19th centuries, taken by settlers. The earliest of the name on record appears to be Nicholas de BRAS, who was documented in County Lancashire in 1273. Willelmus BRASSE of Yorkshire, was listed in the Yorkshire Poll Tax of 1379. Surnames derived from placenames are divided into two broad categories; topographic names and habitation names. Topographic names are derived from general descriptive references to someone who lived near a physical feature such as an oak tree, a hill, a stream or a church. Habitation names are derived from pre-existing names denoting towns, villages and farmsteads. Other classes of local names include those derived from the names of rivers, individual houses with signs on them, regions and whole countries. A later instance of the name mentions Thomas BRACE, who registered at Oxford University in the year 1581. Many factors contributed to the establishment of a surname system. For generations after the Norman Conquest of 1066 a very few dynasts and magnates passed on hereditary surnames, but most of the population, with a wide choice of first-names out of Celtic, Old English, Norman and Latin, avoided ambiguity without the need for a second name. As society became more stabilized, there was property to leave in wills, the towns and villages grew and the labels that had served to distinguish a handful of folk in a friendly village were not adequate for a teeming slum where perhaps most of the householders were engaged in the same monotonous trade, so not even their occupations could distinguish them, and some first names were gaining a tiresome popularity, especially Thomas after 1170. The hereditary principle in surnames gained currency first in the South, and the poorer folk were slower to apply it. By the 14th century however, most of the population had acquired a second name. John Brash was a stabler in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1622, and Robert Brash was a gardener there in 1630. |
