Turner


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This is in England mainly an occupational name for a maker of objects of wood, metal, or bone by the turning of a lathe.  It comes from the Anglo-Norman French tornier.  The products of the turner's craft were wooden measures and a great variety of small objects used in the home, on the farm, and in industry.

Turner may in some places have been derived from the name of the officiel in charge of a tournament (from the Old French tornei); or be a nickname for a fast runner - from the Middle English elements turnen, to turn, plus the fusing of hare, a hare.

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England.  There was a guild of turners in London, starting around 1300.  The earliest references as a surname were in Oxfordshire. 

A Turner family of Mulbarton in Norfolk dates from the early 1500's (they were still farming there in the late 1800's).  Hugh Turner of Sutton Coldfield was the forebear of the Turners of Ambroseden in Oxfordshire.  And other notable 16th century Turner families were to be found in Berkshire and Lancashire.  John Turner from Herefordshire purchased the Kirkleatham estate in north Yorkshire in the early 1600's.  His son William, who prospered as a wool merchant in London, became the village benefactor.

Later, the Turner name was fairly spread around the country.

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J.M.W. Turner was an early 19th century English Romantic landscape painter.
Nat Turner led the largest slave rebellion in the antebellum South.
Frederick Turner, an American historian, is best known for his work, The Significance of the Frontier in American History.
Lana Turner was a glamorous American actress.
Ted Turner was the pioneer developer of CNN.
Tina Turner has been called "the queen of rock and roll."

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  • 125,000 in the UK (most numerous in Yorkshire)
  • 104,000 in America (most numerous in Texas)
  • 61,000 elsewhere (most numerous in Australia)

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