Origin of the Name Golden
The
Golden family history was found in the allfamilycrests.com archives.
Over the centuries Surnames developed a wide number of variants. Different spellings of the same name can be traced back to an original root. Additionally when a bearer of a name emigrated it was not uncommon that their original name would be incorrectly transcribed in the record books at their new location. Surnames were also often altered over the years based on how they sounded phonetically and depending on the prevailing political conditions it may have been advantageous to change a name from one language to another.
Variants of the name Golden
include Goldrick, Golding and Goulding. In Irish this name is O'Goilin and the latter variants are the anglicized forms of this. This sept came from County Donegal.
A sept or clan is a collective term describing a group of persons whose immediate ancestors bore a common surname and inhabited the same territory. Irish septs and clans that are related often belong to even larger groups, sometimes called tribes.
They were a family of the Cenel Eoghain called Gallen in English with their territory comprising part of County Donegal as well as Counties Tyrone and Derry. The forms Golden and Goldrick are found around Carrick-on-Shannon and Boyle with McGoldrick being fairly numerous in County Fermanagh where it is recorded in the Hearth Money Rolls of 1665. This is a very ancient sept first recorded in the year 1054 in the person of MacUalghairg, Lord of Cairbre. They derived their name from Ualghairg O'Rourke, Lord of Breffny, who died as a pilgrim on his way to the Holy Land.
The Golden coat of arms came into existence centuries ago. The process of creating coats of arms (also often called family crests) began in the eleventh century although a form of Proto-Heraldry may have existed in some countries prior to this. The new art of Heraldry made it possible for families and even individual family members to have their very own coat of arms, including all Golden descendants.