Daggett Name Origin

This is stolen verbatim from the Genealogy called:

 History of the Daggett-Doggett Family

 by Samuel Bradlee Doggett

DOGGETT-DAGGETT.

Derivation and Orthography

THE name "DOGGETT" seems quite distinct from" Duckett ", and "Daggett," although possibly all may be from the same root.

Doggett and Duckett were often applied at different periods to the same individual in early times, and the name" Doggett" has been changed and continued as " Daggett" by people of the present day. The larger part of the family in America, whether Doggett or Daggett, must look for their ancestors to the Doggett family of England.

The name" Doggett" is one of the oldest surnames. It seems to be a surname pure and simple. We do not find "de" prefixed to it from which to conclude it to be a name derived from the name of a place, as is so often the case with other surnames, Sir Walter Scott thought it a fit name for a Saxon, for he makes a Norman noble say:  “Here thou Dogget-warder son of a Saxon wolf-hound" [The Be­trothed]. Many expressions of opinion have been made as to the derivation of the name.

Lower, in his "Dictionary of Names," London, 1860, says: "Doggett is an old London name probably corrupted from' Dow-gate;' one of the Roman gateways of the city. Ferguson makes it a diminutive of the Icelandic' Doggr" and the English 'Dog;' but no such diminutive is found."

Robert Ferguson, in his" Teutonic Name System applied to Fam­ily Names," London, 1864, under the heading" The Brute and its Attributes," says: "There are few names derived from the dog. Doggett, which I before classed under this head, I must now with­draw, as I think it belongs to the roots of Anglo-Saxon dugan, to be of use or value,"

As derived from the "Inner Man" we have from the Anglo-Saxon dugan; Old High German tugan, to be virtuous, good, honorable; Anglo-Saxon thraw; Old High German dau, morals, behavior,­ probably the following:

·        Simple forms - English, "Tuggy," "Tuck," "Duck," etc.

·        Diminutives -English, "Duckling."

·        Compounds - English, "Duckett," " Doggett."

·        Compounds - French, "Duquet," "Donet," "Tugot," and many others.

Many ancient endings, as "and" or "ead," prosperity, had "war," "hait," "hood," converge in modern names into" et."

Prof. John Marshall Doggett, of Richmond, Va., formerly pro­fessor of languages in Vanderbilt University, bas made a special study of the subject, and has announced his opinion that the name" Dog­gett" is derived from the Aryan word" Dok" or "Dog," meaning point or cut.

 From this word comes,

·        1st, the Greek (dogma, that is a point out "doctrine");

·        2d, Doc-co (Originally pronounced hard Dok-eo), that is, point out, show, teach; Doc-umentum; Duc-o dux (leader, guide, shower), from which is derived Doge (possibly Duc­quet);

·        3d, Dig (that is, to cut in), from which comes Duglas, possibly Dagger and Dock (tbat is, cut, hence Docket), "dock-tailed," pos­sibly Dog; "Docket" Gallicized to Docquet;

·        4tb, Dogger (or sharp cut-nosed fisb).

Hence, '" Dogget," equal or derived from docket (or dock-hand, that is, Docker)."

 Sir George Duckett, Bart., in his "Memoirs of the Family of Duket," called "Duchctium," published in London, 1874, says: "The family of Ducket derives clearly from that of 'Duchct,' seated at the time of the English Conquest in the Duchy of Burgundy. The surname of Duchet (Duket) is recorded in two of the Battle Abbey Rolls."

 The name is also found in the tenth year of the Conquest; Again (as Duchet) in the oldest roll now extant next to Domesday, the Great Roll 1131, the of the Exchequer, 60 or 70 years after the Conquest, Commonly called com­monly called the Great Roll, 1131; and it is recorded in a remarkable manner in the" Chronicles of the Abbey of St. Albans," A.D. 1119.

A copious account of the Norman family of Duce is to be seen in the "Annales Civiles et Militaires du Pays d'Avranchcs."

 If at this early date, however, the Saxon pronunciation had not affected the Orthography of the name, as clearly as in after times happened in the instances of Doket, Doget, Douket, Dokkyt, no better proof could be adduced that Duket was not the original name, than, perhaps, the earliest authentic mention we find of it in the person of One Herbert Duchet (or Ducket, as he is styled in the entry). The Herbert in question was living in 1119, and in consequence of the incident recorded in the "Gcsta Ahbatum S. Albani," he obtained the cognomen of Duket as an alternative of his previous name. From the time of the Conqueror to the reign of Henry VII., and from that again to the reign of Elizabeth, the name is found varied in different ways according as the Saxon pronunciation came in time to prevail over the Norman and to reappear as the common language of the country.

Duchet Duschet Dutschet Tuchet Tuschet

Ducct Dechet Duquet Duket Dukett

Dukket Dughet Doket Doget Doggette

Dokkytt Dooket Dowket Doucket Doucket

Duckette Ducket Duckett

Such appear at different epochs, the orthography of the name giving apparently twenty-two variations.

At one period the name appears as "Doget." Under this last mode of spelling the name is found in Lincolnshire, Norfolk, and elsewhere, but (as also in the case of Tuchct) only a few and exceptional instances.

Sir D. Hardy, on the orthographical variations of proper names of persons and the arbitrary mode of spelling in ancient times, often regulated by etymology, sound, or abbreviations, remarks that names were Latinized or Gallicized, whenever it was  possible to do so according to the fancy of the scribe, one document frequently exhibiting material variations in the spelling of the same name, and to such a degree that a person would scarcely be able to recognize the modern name. The conclusion, therefore, is that the fault rested with the scribe alone, whether writing from oral instruction or copying from the original writ. 

Nichols, in reviewing “Duchetiana”, says the name was evidently personal not local and that it is derived from a race known as Duchet (French) seated before the Norman Conquest in the Duchy of Burgundy.   

Even as lately as 1601 there Appears to be some Confusion as regards "Dogctt" and "Ducket," for in Samuel Toddes' "Pedigrees of English Family’s" of that Date, wherein what are evidently the arms of the early Duckett family, he gives the name of Dogett, and all through the pedigree he continues this style. There is nothing, however, elsewhere to support the idea that any other of the Dogett family bore such arms or married into the families mentioned in the pedigree. Moreover, Sir George Duckett shows that the arms were borne by the Duckett family, and accounts for Mr. Toddes' reading by the many forms of orthography William Daggett, Esq., of Newcastle-on-Tyne, writing of the deri­vation of the name of Daggett, says, his father" seemed to think it meant' a little Dagger,' but on the other hand I have been told it is a Scandinavian (Danish) word meaning 'the dawn of day.' Lower says Dagger is a Scottish surname, and it 'may be that Daggett is a diminutive derived therefrom. I cannot, however, trace any part of my family to North Britain."