Adair

This name derives from the Olde English pre 7th Century personal name Eadgar, a compound of the elements "ead" meaning "Prosperity -spear". The name is found in Medieval English in various forms i.e. Edgar, Adger, Agar etc., and is first recorded as Edgar in the Domesday Book of 1086, for Huntingdonshire. The surname from this source first appears in the mid 13th Century, (see below). In the "modern" idiom, the name has no less than seventeen spelling variations, including Edgar, Eag(g)er, Egar(r), A(d)ger etc.. On May 29th 1606, William Adair married Margaret Johnstown, at Edinburgh Parish Church, Edinburgh, and Alisone Adair was christened there on November 18th 1610. One famous namebearer being, Sir Robert Adair (1763-1855), who was a diplomat and a close friend of Charles James Fox. After 1788, he travelled to study the effects of the French Revolution, he was M.P. for Appleby and Camelford, and employed by Fox on diplomatic business in Vienna (1806). The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Thomas Edgar, witness, which was dated 1250, The Fine Court Rolls of Surrey, during the reign of King Henry 111, "The Frenchman", 1216 - 1272. 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.