Coat of Arms & Family Crests Store
Iago Coat of Arms / Iago Family CrestThe surname of IAGO was a baptismal name 'the son of James', from the Spanish Iago, which must have crossed over into Cornwall at some early period. The surname is fairly well established in that county. The acquisition of surnames in Europe and England, during the last eight hundred years has been affected by many factors, including social class and social structure, naming practices in cultures and traditions. On the whole the richer and more powerful classes tended to acquire surnames earlier than the working class or the poor, while surnames were quicker to catch on in urban areas than in more sparsely populated rural areas. The bulk of surnames in England were formed in the 13th and 14th centuries. The process started earlier and continued in place names into the 19th century, but the norm is that in the 11th century people did not have surnames, whereas by the 15th century they did. Early records of the name mention Jago filius Yfel of the County of Herefordshire in 1185. James Jagoo of the County of Suffolk in 1524. Thomas Jagoe was registered at St. Columb Major in 1583. John Jago and Margaret Griffin were married at Kensington Church, London in 1608. Thomas Jago and Margaret Deane were married at St. George's Chapel, Mayfair, London in 1754. 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 the main 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. |
