Godding History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms

The surname Godding was first found in the Hundredorum Rolls of 1273, where the following are listed as both a forename and a surname: Godin de Bech, Cambridgeshire; Godun le Bere, Cambridgeshire; Roger Godin, Cambridgeshire; William Godin, Oxfordshire; John filius Goding, Huntingdonshire; Alice Goding, Cambridgeshire; and Alice Godon, Oxfordshire. 1

The same rolls include Godun le Bere in Cheshire. Later Philip Guodun, Guodin was listed in the Assize Rolls of Somerset in 1280. 2

The name is derived from "God or good. Saxon, and win, conqueror, that is, a conqueror in God, converted or victorious in God." 3

Early records also listed the name in its Latin form. The Testa de Nevill, sive Liber Feodorum, temp. Henry III-Edward I listed Gaudinus de Albo Monast, 10 Henry III (during the tenth year of King Henry III's reign) and the Placita de Quo Warranto, temp. Edward I-III listed Gaudinus de Aseby, Lincolnshire, 20 Edward I (during the twentieth year of King Edward I's reign.) 4

"Godden is an ancient Kent surname. The vicar of Reculver in 1663 was thus named, and in Folkestone church there is, or was, a memorial to a Godden of the date of 1636. The Goddens held the manor of Leyborne and much other property in the county during the 16th. century; and back in the 14th century we find a family of De Godden holding the manor of Godden in Tenterden parish, where the surname yet remains. This is in fact an early English surname, being represented in the forms of Godin and Goding in the adjacent county of Sussex during the 13th century." 5