Amesbury family name and history

In my Regency romance series, "The Rogue Hearts," beginning with The Stranger She Married and The Guise of a Gentleman, I created a family with the surname of Amesbury. People often ask me where I got that name.

I first heard it when a friend married a young man whose last name was Amesbury. The moment I heard Amesbury, something perked up inside me.
She said dreamily, "Doesn't that sound like the name of an English lord?"
I wholeheartedly agreed. Years later, when I wrote my Regency romance novel, The Stranger She Married, there was no question that Amesbury would be Cole's surname. And since Cole has four brothers, there will be four heroes with that same wonderfully romantic and noble surname.

I did some research on the origin of the name. It is, indeed, British and has a long history.

What I found was a great website with info about the Amesbury family name here: http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Amesbury

"This name is of Anglo-Saxon origin and is a locational surname deriving from the place in Wiltshire called "Amesbury". The placename is first recorded circa 880 in the "Saxon Charters" as "Ambresbyrig", and means "Ambr's fortress", derived from the Old English pre 7th Century personal name "Ambr", after the Old Germanic name "Ambricus", thought to mean "immortal", from the Greek "Ambrosios", with Old English "burg" or "burh" meaning a fort or fortified place and often referring to a Roman or other pre-English fort."

My heart nearly stopped when I read this:

"The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Christian Amsburie...dated 7th August 1578, Bitton, Gloucestershire, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, Good Queen Bess, 1558 - 1603"

Hmmm. Christian Amesbury. Odd coincidence, that, since he's one of my Amesbury brothers, the youngest and the hero of my next book in the series. Don't you just love serendipity?

So the name Amesbury is a perfectly appropriate name for an Earl of a Regency romance novel with an old and distinguished history, not to mention a castle, to have. Besides, it just sounds lovely, doesn't it?

Read more: http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Amesbury#ixzz1Ukjz5tPG
Read more: http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Amesbury#ixzz1UkmQ8PfF