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Carter Family History

INTRODUCTION

This is an old ancient name, thought to be originally derived from the Celtic word "cairt" meaning "cart". It is an occupational surname for a transporter of goods, with an elaborate history and derivation. There are four sources for the word, from the Latin "carettarius", from "carrum"; from the Old Norman French "caretier", surviving in modern French surnames such as "cartier", from the Middle English (cart(e)", derived from the Old Norse "kartr" or the Olde English "craet" and finally from the Olde French "charetier", charioteer. All four of these sources have been merged to form the modern English surnames Carter and Charter...

SURNAME

Carter (Variants: Carters) Another alternative origins of this surname are ‘guard’ which is derived from the Old English word Caretarius or Carda. In Gaelic, although Carter relative to ‘cairt’, it also relates to Cairtear, a tourist, a sojourner. A Irish reduced form of McCarter.

The earliest reference recorded in relation to Carter appears in the Latinised form, as Fulco Carettarius in the 1177 Pipe Rolls for Cambridgeshire.

Perhaps the world’s most sublime archaeological find was exposed by Howard Carter (1873 – 1939), a British archaeologist who was originally hired as an artist in Egypt and later went to discover King Tutankhamen’s tomb on 26 November 1922.

Howard Carter had connections with British politician Sir Philip Sassoon, who commissioned Port Lympne - an Edwardian house that overlooks the English Channel in Hythe, Kent. After Sassoon’s death, the mansion was rarely occupied until the late John Aspinall bought the grounds in 1973 to house rare and endangered species of animals and still remains open to the public.

In 1881 Census, there were a popular 2,086 bearers of the surname in Kent. Agricultural Labourer was the most common occupation in the UK, followed by Labourer and Farmer with a less common appearance as Coal Miner. In 1891, the frequency in the England and Wales was 50,594 with fewer residing in Scotland, particularly the Lanarkshire County.

SOURCES:

1881, 1891 Census

1881 Census in Kent

Dictionary of American Family Homes, P Hanks OUP 2003 Homes of Family Names in Great Britain, H.B. Guppy, London

1890 The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland, P.Hanks, Coats, McClure OUP 2016

1860 Lower, Mark A Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom, London: J.R Smith. Public Domain

1857 Arthur, William An Etymological Dictionary of Family and Christian Names. New York: Sheldon, Blakeman. Public Domain

J.M.P