« Reply #1 on: Monday 23 April 18 21:41 BST (UK) »
Just like any parent who hears a name, likes it and chooses to use it...so there doesn't need to be ancestry from Wales,( or Arabic which also use it) it sounds like it is a 'family' name used and repeated.
I have several family names in my ancestry, some come from logical sources others don't seem to have any logic at all.
When I started to research I could never find any of my maternal grandfather and his siblings as they all used their middle names and it was a great surprise to find them eventually in records all with different names I had never heard. Think it must have been a fashion at that time as several other researchers have found the same.
Leicestershire:Chamberlain, Dakin, Wilkinson, Moss, Cook, Welland, Dobson, Roper,Palfreman, Squires, Hames, Goddard, Topliss, Twells,Bacon.
Northamps:Sykes, Harris, Rice,Knowles.
Rutland:Clements, Dalby, Osbourne, Durance, Smith,Christian, Royce, Richardson,Oakham, Dewey,Newbold,Cox,Chamberlaine,Brow, Cooper, Bloodworth,Clarke
Durham/Yorks:Woodend, Watson,Parker, Dowser
Suffolk/Norfolk:Groom, Coleman, Kemp, Barnard, Alden,Blomfield,Smith,Howes,Knight,Kett,Fryston
Lincolnshire:Clements, Woodend