A male name. (Latin Georgius, French Georges,Italian Giorgio, Spanish Jorge, German, Danish Georg, Russian Yuri, Irish Seiorse): Greek γεωργός ‘farmer’ or ‘tiller of the soil’. St George was a Roman military tribune martyred at Nicomedia in 303. The dragon-killing legends were attached to his name later. His cult was brought to England from the East by returning Crusaders; he was said to have come to their help under the walls of Antioch in 1089 and was then chosen as their patron by the Normans under Robert of Normandy, s. of the Conqueror. There are 126 churches dedicated to him in England. But George as a christian name was slow in taking root. The earliest example noted is one George Grim at the end of the 12th C, and there are occasional occurrences in records of the 13th and early 14th C. Edward III had a particular devotion to St George and in 1349, on St George’s Day, founded the Order of the Garter, which he placed under his patronage, and dedicated to him the chapel of the Order at Windsor. From this time he was regarded as the patron saint of England. But even after this the name was not much used, and Edward himself gave it to none of his seven ss., the only member of the royal family to bear the name before the 18th C being his great-great-grandson, the unfortunate George, Duke of Clarence (b. 1449). The name was used in a few families (e.g. the Villiers’s, who used it from the middle of the 16th C), but was rare until the advent of the House of Hanover in 1714, when an unbroken succession of King George’s for 116 years at last acclimatized the name, which has now acquired an extremely English flavour. The usual Scottish and North country pet-form is Geordie.

Georgius Curia Regis Rolls 1199, 1203, Hundred Rolls 1273, Feudal Aids 1303, 1346, 1428, Poll Tax of West Riding of Yorkshire 1379 1379. Jeorgius Hundred Rolls. 1273. George Cocke Lorelle’s Bote c. 1515.