Origin of the Name Judge
The
Judge 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 Judge
include Breheny, McBrehon, Brehany and Brehon. These names are all anglicized forms of the Gaelic Mac an Bhreitheamhnaigh sept name.
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.
In 1659 the name was numerous in the barony of Tirerrill, County Sligo and in the 'Stafford's Inquisitions' we find families of the name in Connacht. The ancient document 'The Four Masters' record the death of Cormac an Brehon in the year 1483 and in the next century Eugene MacBrehan was Bishop of Mayo from 1541-1561. A most famous bearer of the name was Peter Judge who was one of the finest actors in the Abbey Theatre Company. He died in 1947.
The Judge 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 Judge descendants.