10,572 Global Dover Family Members

Dover Family History

This ancient name is of English locational origin from the port of Kent thus called. Recorded variously as "Dubris", circa 425 A.D., as "Dofras" in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, dated 696 - 716, and as "Doferum", circa 100, in "The Saints of England", edited by Liebermann, the place was so named from the river on which it stands, now called Dour, but originally named with the British "Dubra", from "dubra", water, which became the Welsh "dwfr", water. ("British", in this case, refers to the extinct Celtic language of the ancient Britons, and the name means "the waters", i.e. "the stream"). The surname from this source was first recorded in the latter part of the 11th Century (see below)...