Ulph

[P.Harrison]

Whilst researching our family tree we came across the surname Ulph. We found a James Ulph dating back to about 1700 in the Norfolk area, in and around Alysham. Has anyone got this surname in their family tree?

[suemalings]

I don't have that name in any of my trees but you may be interested to know that I did a general search on Ancestry for the name Ulph and came up with 405 entries! These range from Immigration, electoral rolls, census etc etc. So it would appear it is not an uncommon name!

[P.Harrison]

Thank you for that info.I thought it was going to be a fairly uncommon name.

[Megan Roberts]

From the dictionary of English and Welsh surnames:

ULPH - (1) Bapt. 'the son of Ulf', a favourite personal name at the time of the Conquest and for a century onward; v. Wolff (v. Yonge ii 267). (2) local of 'Ulph' a parish in the diocese of Norwich.



I checked the Diocese of Norwich web site and the closest parish I could find is 'Parish of Burnham Sutton cum Ulph'.

[Pam Downes]

I don't have that name in any of my trees but you may be interested to know that I did a general search on Ancestry for the name Ulph and came up with 405 entries! These range from Immigration, electoral rolls, census etc etc. So it would appear it is not an uncommon name!

Depends what sort of time span those 405 entries cover. Over a hundred years that's an average of four a year, so I would say it is an uncommon name. Even if those entries were all in one county it's still quite rare.

I just checked Ancestry for Ulph in Norfolk 1700-1710 and it says 39 entries, so an average of two entries a year.
I have two not-so-common surnames in my tree. Searching for one of them, with no variants gives me 42 entries in that same twenty-year period, while the other one has just one entry. Though a variant of that has the massive total of eleven entries. Both names searched for only in Norfolk, where I know my ancestors came from.

Norfolk is one of those counties which is very well transcribed regarding baptisms, marriages, and burials.