Blackmore

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A family name of English origin carried by several notable people ; a rural English place name, such as a scenic vale in Dorset
2. An English surname borne by various individuals ; a geographical name for a countryside locality, such as a vale in southwest England
3. A hereditary family name held by several public figures ; the name of an English rural area, for example a valley in Dorset

Etymology: Blackmore is an English surname built from two plain Old English words: "blæc", meaning "black", and "mōr", meaning "moor", the open, boggy or heathy upland that covered much of the English landscape. A family name like this usually began as a description of a person's home or land, so an early bearer was likely someone who lived by or worked on a dark, marshy moor, the sort of ground that looked black with peat or wet heather. The same pattern produced many other surnames, such as Whitmore or Moore, where the landscape feature alone served as the name. Blackmore's compound form records the colour of that ground, which is why it reads as a place-name even when it began as a way of identifying a household.