Turberville

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An English family name, once borne by a sixteenth-century poet who wrote lyric verse and translated classical works
2. A surname of English origin, carried by a Tudor-era writer known for poems, epitaphs and translations from Latin
3. A personal family name of English origin, associated with a late Elizabethan poet and author of verse and epigrams

Etymology: Turberville is a surname rather than a common word, and its history is a matter of place before person. It comes from the Norman towns of Saint-Ouen-de-Thouberville and La Trinité-de-Thouberville, both in Normandy, and the name was carried into England by people who took it from their home villages, as Norman families commonly did. The surname is English in use but Norman in origin, so the name records a place across the Channel rather than an occupation or a nickname. The Thouberville element of those place names is what the surname preserves, and the towns themselves share it, which is why the two places are the source the record points to. Surnames of this kind were often adopted by a family to mark where it came from, and over generations the place name settled into a fixed family name, passed down unchanged while the place itself went on being a village in Normandy.