TAYLOR BRUMBELOW

Transferred use of the surname, in origin an occupational name for a tailor (Anglo-Norman taillour, a derivative of taillier ‘to cut’, Late Latin taleare). Use as a given name was influenced by the U.S. president Zachary Taylor (1784–1850), hero of the Mexican War. As a girl's name it became well established in North America in the 1980s and has since also taken root in Britain.

Origin uncertain. 1. It is probably a variant of English Rumbelow, itself of uncertain origin; most likely a habitational name from a place in Aston, Birmingham, called the Rumbelow, from a misdivision of the Old English locative phrase æt þæm þreowān hlāwum ‘at the three hills’. The Old English word hlāw meant ‘small hill’ or ‘tumulus’. 2. Alternatively, it may be an Americanized form of the German habitational name Brummerloh, from a place so named near Varel, Lower Saxony.