Wharram - Name

There are at least seven thousand known examples of 'lost' medieval villages, many of whom cannot be identified as to their former site, although the surname may be quite popular. However, this is not the case with Wharram, the village site is a regular place of medieval 'digs' lying smoe ten miles east of the city of York. The name is Olde English deriving from 'hwer' meaning a basin and 'hamm' meadow land in effect an enclosure in a basin shaped valley! The village is recorded in Domesday Book (1086) as Warron or Warham, later the name 'Percy' was added when the area became a game park for the Earls of Northumberland. This in itself may have lend to the gradual abandonment of the village is the 17th Century. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Edward Waram of Yorkshire, which was dated 1583, The Oxford University Entry Register, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, Good Queen Bess, 1558 - 1603. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.