This surname is derived from a nickname. a familiar expression, 'my good friend'; compare Bonamy. A common surname in early registers. 'Feste! fy! that were a wykyd treson! Belamy, thou shal be smytt.': York Mystery Plays. 'Thou belamy, thou pardoner,': Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales. 'Belamy, fayre frynde': Promptorium Parvulorum.

Henry Belamy, Close Roll, 2 Edward I.

Hugh Belami, Cambridgeshire, 1273. Hundred Rolls.

Roger Belamy, Oxfordshire, ibid.

John Belamy, Somerset, 1 Edward III: Kirby's Quest.

John Bellmy, Norwich, 1603: History of Norfolk.

1634. Baptised — Elizabeth, d. John Bellamye: St. James, Clerkenwell.

1757. Married — Charles Parent and Elizabeth Bellamy: St. George, Hanover Square.

Dr. Giles regards this as a corruption of the Norman surname Belesme; but there is abundance of evidence to shew that it is the old or Norman-French belamy, "fair friend," used much in the depreciatory way in which we now employ "good fellow." When William Rufus had scolded his chamberlain for offering him a a pair of silk hose that had cost only three shillings, and the official had procured a worse pair for a mark, Robert of Gloucester makes the monarch say —

Local. From Bellesme, a town of France; or it may be Belami, French, a dear and excellent friend; from bel, fair or beautiful, and ami, a friend or companion.

Bellamy is a name that has long been established in Notts. It occurred in the adjacent county of Cambridge in the reign of Edward I. (H. R.), and is at present to be found in Hunts.

In the list of the freeholders of this county in 1698 occur the names of Bellamy, Buttery, and Blatherwick; the Bellamys, of whom there were several on the list, lived then in East Retford, and in other places in the county, and Bellamy is still an East Retford name. Robert Buttery of Widmerpool, and John Buttery of Sutton are there mentioned; and there was at that time a Joseph Blatherwick of Lamley (Harl.). Blatherwick, it should be noted, is the name of a parish in Northamptonshire.