Taylor Surname: Meaning, Origin & Hull History

Taylor began as a job title: a tailor, someone who cut cloth and made clothes. It is one of the most common surnames in Britain, which is exactly why the name alone says very little about any one family. We have not found a documented Hull family or firm called Taylor that we can verify, so this page sticks to the meaning, the spread of the name and the records that will help you research a Taylor ancestor in Hull.

What does Taylor mean?

Taylor is an occupational surname for a tailor. The word came into English from Anglo-Norman French tailleur, meaning a cutter, which goes back through Late Latin taliator to the verb taliare, "to cut" (as summarised by britishsurnames.uk; Wikipedia gives the same French source and cites Oxford Dictionaries). Because tailors worked in every town, men in different places could each be "the tailor", and many sons kept the label. That is why Taylor is not tied to one place or one ancestral family.

We have not been able to read the entries in The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland or Reaney and Wilson's A Dictionary of English Surnames, so we do not quote them. The meaning above is uncontroversial, and the sources we did read agree on it.

Origin and early records

Wikipedia and several reference sites say that the name appears in English records from the late twelfth century, with 1182 in Somerset often quoted. Those dates trace back to a website rather than to a published roll that we could read, so we do not treat any precise early date as confirmed. What we can say is that it is a medieval name, formed after the Norman Conquest from a French word, and that it was already a hereditary surname in many families by the later Middle Ages.

A Victorian dictionary, William Arthur's An Etymological Dictionary of Family and Christian Names (1857), calls Taylor "a name of trade" and notes that some bearers spelled it Tayleure, apparently to disguise how humble the origin seemed to them. It is a reminder that spellings were sometimes changed for reasons of status rather than pronunciation.

Spelling variants and related names

• Tayler and Tailor: spelling variants of the same word. Tailor is the modern word for the trade and is much rarer as a surname.
• Tayleure: a more elaborate form recorded by Arthur (1857) as a deliberate respelling.

Wikipedia also says Taylor is often the anglicised form of the German surname Schneider (also "tailor"), but it gives no source, so treat it as plausible rather than proven. For any given family, only documents can show which origin applies.

How common is Taylor?

The figures depend on the dataset. britishsurnames.uk ranks Taylor fifth in Britain, with about 342,700 bearers (the page does not give the year of its data). Wikipedia, citing Forebears, also puts it fifth in England.

For Yorkshire, the same site's list of top surnames in the 1881 census places Taylor second in the county, with 22,512 entries, after Smith (46,472) and just ahead of Wilson (22,139). That is a transcription of a Victorian census, so counts are approximate. We have not found a reliable, reusable ranking for Hull alone, so we do not give one.

Taylor in Hull and East Yorkshire

Taylor arose independently wherever there were tailors, so there is no single "Hull Taylor family", and we found no well-documented Taylor firm, ship or place in Hull that we could confirm from a reliable source. We would rather say that than invent a connection. If you have a source for a Taylor with a documented Hull story, such as a tradesman, shipowner or civic figure who died long ago, please send it to us.

Researching your Taylor family in Hull

With a very common name, the surname is the least useful clue. These steps help you separate one Taylor family from another:

• Start with names, dates and places from certificates, family papers and relatives, and do not link your Taylors to anyone else's on the strength of the surname alone.
• Use the census, working back from the most recent release and using first names, ages, birthplaces and addresses to separate households. The Hull History Centre has a guide to Census Records.
• For tailors in particular, its guides to Apprenticeship Records and Trade Directories may confirm the trade, and Wills may name relatives.
• If a Taylor worked on the Hull fishing fleet, the Centre also publishes guides to Fishing Crew Lists and Skipper cards. Our piece on Hull's maritime and fishing heritage gives the background.
• The East Yorkshire Family History Society runs help desks, including volunteer advice at the Carnegie Heritage Centre in Hull; check its site for current times.

More surname pages are in our names section.

Sources

1. britishsurnames.uk, "Taylor", britishsurnames.uk/surname/taylor (accessed 6 November 2026).
2. britishsurnames.uk, "Taylor: as described in historical dictionaries", quoting W. Arthur, An Etymological Dictionary of Family and Christian Names (1857), britishsurnames.uk/surname/taylor/historic (accessed 6 November 2026).
3. Wikipedia, "Taylor (surname)", en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_(surname) (accessed 6 November 2026).
4. britishsurnames.uk, "Top surnames from the 1881 census in Yorkshire", britishsurnames.uk/1881census/yorkshire (accessed 6 November 2026).
5. Hull History Centre, family history research guides, hullhistorycentre.org.uk (accessed 6 November 2026).
6. East Yorkshire Family History Society, eyfhs.org.uk (accessed 6 November 2026).

Last checked 6 November 2026. Spotted an error? Tell us.