"de Courtenay" vs. "Courtenay

Does anyone know approximately when noble families like the Courtenays dropped the Norman "de" from their names? I'm guessing it was around the beginning of the fifteenth century (the time of Chaucer).

Thanks,
Carol

Carol
Wikipedia suggests 14th century

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobiliary_particle

Although it is not necessarily a sign of nobility.

Regards
David

Da

No it isn't a sign of nobility - just, in most cases, where you came from. This could of course get quite confusing if a village with 100 inhabitants all decided to call themselves William, or John or Thomas de Dunchurch, when they weren't closely related at all. Happily this didn't occur often because there are other surnames connected with trades like Thatcher.
David's right. It was regularised either late in the reign of Edward III or during that of Richard II to avoid such legal confusion. Can't lay my hands on the book where that came from but certainly from around the 1380s it starts to completely die out because you had to decide what your surname was. I think what confuses it is that fact that so many of the nobility were of French origin so the 'de' was also part of their name, sometimes it denoted where they came from, but not always. Some like the De Veres, kept the 'De', others like the Courtenays, dropped it by 1400 and some, like the D'Anvers and D'Oyleys, ran it into their name and became Danvers. It's a fascinating subject. H

From: "daviddurose2000@... []" <>
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Sent: Sunday, 5 March 2017, 22:42
Subject: Re: "de Courtenay" vs. "Courtenay

Carol
Wikipedia suggests 14th century https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobiliary_particle Although it is not necessarily a sign of nobility. Regards
David Da