A habitational surname is taken from the name of a location and/or prominent feature where a family lived. Some Bowe families may have taken their name from any of the following:
Possible habitational name from Bow Fell, County Cumbria.
Possible habitational name from Bow, County Devon.
Possible habitational name from Bow, County Oxfordshire.
Possible habitational name from Bow, East London.
Possible habitational name from St. Mary-Le-Bow church in London - There was an early family in this area named de Arcubus, possibly named after the Norman arches from which the church takes its name. There was a "Bowes manor" nearby. This could have belonged to the wealthy Bowes from Durham who spent a lot of time in London, or conceivably from a family named after the church, maybe, but not likely, even associated with the de Arcubus name that has been associated with Bowes Castle.
Possible habitational name from Bowes Parish in Durham.
Bowes Parish was referred to by various names in early written history (see below) [1]. Most likely these variations result from different ways the parish's name could be written phonetically, since it appears they would all be pronounced approximately the same. Conceivably, the phonetics changed between the initial use of Bogis (presumably Old English spelling of Scandinavian Bogas), and the following versions which would have been written by Norman followers of William the Conqueror who took control there at the end of the 11th century.
One researcher proposed that Bogis, Boghes, Boughes and Bowes are corruptions of the town name of Bures in Normandy, suggesting that early inhabitants that used for their name the Norman construction “de”=from, eg, “de Bogis," "de Boghes," "de Boughes" and "de Bowes" may have come from ("de") Bures. [2] Norman settlers commonly used this naming practice that harkened back to their homeland, but I find no good indication of it, phonetically or otherwise. At the same time, it does appear that the very early Fulco de Bogis and Osbert de Bowes used the Norman naming convention, but they may be using it to refer to their locale in England.
Bowes Parish's name is recorded as follows. I am including possible associations for the record in case they become relevant. None of these names occur in the 1086 Doomsday Book.
12TH CENTURY
Bogis (old Scandinavian word for "bow" or "bend"; at Google Translate you can hear how this would be pronounced in modern German, Spanish and Danish… the Danish version lends itself most easily to the subsequent phonetic spellings)
Boues (Middle English plural of boue meaning “bow” as in bow and arrow; possibly used by Norman settlers as a plural of the French word “boue” for mud or dirt, after the repeated devastation of the area)
Bouys (does not appear in Middle English dictionary; possibly after Soisy-Bouy, France?)
13TH CENTURY
Bouas (does not appear in Middle English dictionary; appears in Greece)
Boghes (does not appear in Middle English dictionary but it is easily a spelling variant of Boughes (seen below) Middle English for branch of a tree or bush)
14TH CENTURY
Bouexe (does not appear in Middle English dictionary)
Boughes (along with Bowes and probably Boghes, Middle English for branch of a tree or bush)
Bowes (along with Boughes and probably Boghes, Middle English for branch of a tree or bush)
Most likely the town of Bowes originally took its name from the old Scandinavian, probably Danish?, word bogis meaning “bow” or “bend." Later spellings were most likely written just as the name sounded to the scribe.
(Other early words for 'bow' or 'bend' include the Old Scandinavian words boga, bogi and bogr, and the Old English word boga. Another account states that the name derives from the Middle English word "boges", which means "the arches of a bridge," thus, someone taking the place name was "a dweller at the bridge with arches.")
The bow(s) or bend(s) after which the village was likely named could be one of two prominent local geographic features.
1. The River Greta flows near Bowes village and has many bends in it. This may be the most likely derivation, since it easily lends itself to the plural sound given in the early names for the village.
2. Two miles away from Bowes a natural and picturesque bridge spans the River Greta, formed by a rude arch of limestone rock. The facts that a) it's an unusual formation caused by the river going underground in caves and coming up again later, and b) it's large enough for carriages to cross, would make it a significant local feature. It's been called God's Bridge or Greta Bridge.
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1. 'Parishes: Bowes', A History of the County of York North Riding: Volume 1 (1914), pp. 42-49. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=64715 Date accessed: 11 July 2010.