Slott - Name

This unusual and interesting name has a number of possible origins. As a purely English name, it is medieval in origin and a topographical name denoting someone who lived by or at a muddy place, derived from the early Middle English word 'sclott'. The modern surname, found as 'Slot' and 'Slott', may also derive from the northern Middle English and Scottish word 'slot', itself derived from the Old Germanic 'slut', which originally meant door-bolt, lock, and by extension, castle. The surname from this source may therefore be a metonymic occupational name for a locksmith, or a topographical name for someone who lived in or near a castle. This use of the word 'slot' appears in a 16th Century English rhyme called 'Riche's Allarme to England' (1578); 'thou paydst for building of a slot that wrought thine owne decay'. The marriage of Elizabeth Slot and Paul Pepper was recorded at St. James's, in Dover, on the 23rd January 1686. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Walter de la Slot, which was dated 1275, in the Norfolk Hundred Rolls, during the reign of King Edward 1, known as the Hammer of The Scots, 1272 - 1307. 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.