Has anyone connected the surnames "Taillefer" with "Taillie" or "Taille"?

Question

We are tracing our ancestry for the "Taillie" or "Taille" or "Tailly" name who were Walloons outside Calais, France from 1587 to about 1680 when they moved to Zeeland, Netherlands. The sur names are virtually the same with the exception of "fer" or "iron" as a suffix! 

The people we have are:

Dericq Taillie, 1587 -?, Offequerque, France

his son Pierre 1622-1680  Offequerque, France

his son Dericq b 1655 Offequerque, France and died 1693 in Schoondjike, Zeeland, Netherlands.

his son Pierre b 1682 Offequerque, France,  d 1734 Schoondjike, Zeeland, Netherlands

 

Please let me know your thoughts on this! It would be a very interesting connection for me.

Answer 1

Hi

My name is John Taylor.

Many people claim that Taylor is related to Taillefer.

I have done extensive research but cannot find any evidence of these names(Taillefer etc.) in England pre 12 century.

I also believe that the iron nickname is wrong and not supported by evidence, many words end in fer but dont relate to iron.

I found that Taillefer was a place name and histotically people were given a place name as their second name.

Comments

HI,

There may be confusion with the name Taille or similar spelling. Taille means cut in French.Taillefer is probably cut-iron and Taillebois is probable cut-wood. Most people in medieval times only had one name but to differentiate between people of the same name they were given a nick name which could be anything, Roger John-son later becoming Johnson as a second name. The problem with Taille is that it could be an activity name and could also be a place name. the Normans were obsessed with woods,timber and especially cutting it down ( I lived in Normandy and I know).So any derivative of Taille would we incredibly common and that kind of makes things very difficult to work out which one is which.