Coat of Arms & Family Crests Store
Habberjam Coat of Arms / Habberjam Family CrestThis surname of HABBERJAM was an English occupational name for a maker of coats of chain mail. The name was derived from the Old French word HAUVERGEON (mail, jerkin) a diminutive of HAUBERC (coat of mail) a word of Germanic origin. After coats of mail became obsolete and the word fell out of use, the name continued. Variant spellings include HABERSHAM, HABERSHON, HAVERSHAM, HABERGHAM HABBBIJAM, HABERJAM, HABERDEJOHN, HAVISHAM, HABBESHAW and HABBISHAW. Many of the modern family names throughout Europe reflect the profession or occupation of their forbears in the Middle Ages and derive from the position held by their ancestors in the village, noble household or religious community in which they lived and worked. The addition of their profession to their birth name made it easier to identify individual tradesmen and craftsmen. As generations passed and families moved around, so the original identifying names developed into the corrupted but simpler versions that we recognise today. The earliest of the name on record appears to be Mathew de HABERCHAM, who was recorded in Lancashire in the year 1296, and Lawrence HABERJAM appears in Lancashire in 1551. John HABERDEJOHN was recorded in Canterbury in the year 1592. Over the centuries, most people in Europe have accepted their surname as a fact of life, as irrevocable as an act of God. However much the individual may have liked or disliked the surname, they were stuck with it, and people rarely changed them by personal choice. A more common form of variation was in fact involuntary, when an official change was made, in other words, a clerical error. Among the humbler classes of European society, and especially among illiterate people, individuals were willing to accept the mistakes of officials, clerks and priests as officially bestowing a new version of their surname, just as they had meekly accepted the surname they had been born with. In North America, the linguistic problems confronting immigration officials at Ellis Island in the 19th century were legendary as a prolific source of Anglicization. In the Middle Ages heraldry came into use as a practical matter. It originated in the devices used to distinguish the armoured warriors in tournament and war, and was also placed on seals as marks of identity. As far as records show, true heraldry began in the middle of the 12th century, and appeared almost simultaneously in several countries of Western Europe. |
