Whittington

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A medieval merchant who became Lord Mayor of London and is remembered as a folk hero ; a place name for several English villages ; a family name carried by people of English descent
2. The legendary Lord Mayor of London from the fourteenth century ; the name of certain small English villages ; a hereditary surname found mainly in England
3. Richard, a medieval London merchant celebrated in folklore as a mayor ; a designation for a few rural English settlements ; a surname borne by English families

Etymology: Richard Whittington was a real London mercer, a dealer in fine cloth, who was elected Lord Mayor of London three times, in 1397, 1406, and 1419. He died in 1423 and left money for public works, including rebuilding Newgate prison and a library at St Bartholomew's Hospital. The famous tale of a poor boy who walks to London, befriends a ship's cat, and hears the city bells call him back to become mayor grew up around this man only much later, and the legend has little basis in the record of his life. The surname itself comes from English place names. Several villages across England, in Shropshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire and elsewhere, bear the name, and it is generally taken to derive from Old English elements meaning an enclosure or farmstead, though the exact first element is uncertain. Families took the name from whichever village they came from, so the surname has no single origin point.