Think your family crest came from a sword-wielding ancestor or a noble knight slaying dragons? Maybe not. The truth might be less Hollywood... and more hometown.

How Geography Shaped Your Coat of Arms

A coat of arms is a unique emblem that began in medieval Europe as a way to identify knights in battle. These designs (often featuring shields, helmets, crests, and mottos) evolved into powerful symbols of identity.

But here's the twist: Not all coats of arms were granted for heroic deeds or noble bloodlines. Many were tied to geographic origins.

Think of it like this:

• A knight from York might carry a white rose

• Someone from a coastal town could feature waves or ships

• A family from an rural or woodland region might use oak trees or stags 

You’ll often see surnames like de Clare (from the town of Clare in Suffolk, England, home to a powerful Norman family) or von Essen (from the German city of Essen). These names are clues to places, showing how geography helped shape both the family name and the crest behind it.

How Places Became Family Crests 

A lot of crests trace back to toponymic surnames. These are names that come from a place like a town, village, or type of landscape. 

Why were surnames place-based?

• Nobility adopted names linked to lands or estates to display status

• Tradespeople brought rural place-based surnames into cities

Toponymic surnames could come from:

• Towns, villages, or estates (de Montibus—of the mountains)

• Local features (Dupont—of the bridge)

• Landscapes (valleys, forests, rivers, hills)

Names like Atwood (“at the wood”) or Daubney (“from de Albigni”) reflect how prepositions eventually fused into surnames.

Pronunciation changes across regions also led to spelling variations:

• Wyndham from Wymondham

• Anster from Anstruther

• Badgerly from Badgworthy
  
  

How Family Crests Show a Family’s Origin

Bulow Family Crest

The Bülow family is an old noble house in Germany. But they weren’t named after a famous ancestor. They were named after a village in Northern Germany, and the family’s name and crest came straight from that location.

Their coat of arms features fourteen gold discs arranged in a triangle on a blue background, and the crest includes an oriole (a bird whose name in local dialect also happened to be "Bülow”).

Sapieha Family Crest

The Sapieha family was a powerful noble house in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In 1611, they granted the town of Jurbarkas its rights, and the town’s arms featured a red shield with three silver fleurs-de-lis. Over time, it appeared in the family shields of local residents, too!

Wordplay in Heraldry: Canting Arms

Some coats of arms are canting arms. This means the symbols of the family crest are a pun or a visual reference to the name itself.

Two great examples:

Łodzia (Poland)

“Łódź” means “boat” in Polish. So, naturally, the Łodzia coat of arms features a boat. Originally used by noble families, the city of Łódź later adopted a similar design.

Ernle / Earnley (England)

This surname comes from the Sussex place name Earnley, meaning “place of eagles.” Unsurprisingly, the crest includes—you guessed it—eagles! 

How to Spot Place Clues in Your Family Crest

The best way to find your family crest is through heraldic researchers! Our team is trained to read these symbols like a secret map. But if you’re feeling curious, you can try decoding it yourself.

Even without deep records, your crest might hint at where your ancestors lived. Heraldry is full of geographic clues. 

How to Trace Your Crest’s True Origin 

So, your last name might not come from a sword-wielding knight but from a scenic hilltop village. 

Here’s how to find out if your family crest is rooted in a place. 

1. Start with Your Surname

Before you dive headfirst into decoding your family crest, get to know your surname. Understanding where your name comes from can reveal a lot, and it might just point you to the right coat of arms.

Plug your surname into genealogy sites like Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, or Forebears.io.  These can help trace your family tree and tell you where your ancestors lived, which is often where toponymic (place-based) surnames come from.

Bonus tip: Build a simple family tree as you go. Names, birthplaces, and dates (even just a few generations back) can help you narrow down which family crest is actually yours! 

Once you’ve got the basics, then you can start digging into your family crest.

2. Check the Common Sites

Many surnames have their own Wikipedia pages with etymology sections. Look for phrases like:

• “Derived from the village of…”

• “Originally spelled ‘de [Placename]’…”

• “Locative surname meaning ‘from [Town]’…”

Even just Googling "origin of [your surname]" might pull up nuggets from local history archives or genealogy blogs.

3. Hunt for "de" or "of" in Old Records (continued)

Dig into parish records, census data, or early tax rolls to see how your surname was originally written. 

Variants like “de Sutton” or “of Bylaugh” often hint at geographic roots. Prepositions like de, of, von, di, are breadcrumb trails pointing to the land your ancestors may have been linked to. 

But be careful: spelling alone isn’t proof. Just because a surname looks like a place name doesn’t mean it is!

A famous example? Jeanne d’Arc. Some surnames are patronymic, meaning they come from the name of a father or ancestor, not a location. Jeanne d’Arc’s name wasn’t tied to a town called Arc. It was actually a distorted version of her father’s name! So, always consider the history behind the name before making the leap.

4. Crack Open the Armorials

Feeling fancy? Dig into heraldry reference books that catalog thousands of crests:

• Burke’s General Armory (England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales)

• Rietstap’s Armorial Général (for Continental Europe)

• Papworth’s Ordinary of British Armorials (great if you’ve seen your crest but don’t know the name)

These books list families by surname and describe their arms in heraldic shorthand, so they’re perfect if you’re matching a crest to a name or vice versa. 

Tip: Many of these are scanned and searchable online (check archive.org or Google Books), so there's no need to haunt an old library. 

Why Does This Matter?

Finding your family crest and understanding where your crest came from can uncover a whole new layer of meaning. 

Even if it doesn’t trace back to a powerful and wealthy king but instead to a quiet village between hills, a riverside farm, or a walled medieval town, that story is just as rich and just as worth telling. 

Now it’s your turn: trace the symbols, map the names, and see where your history leads!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image Credits:

Vladimir Srajber

Epitaph in Friedrichshagen church via Wikimedia Commons, source

Arms of Antony Anandarayar via Wikimedia Commons, source

Polish Coat of Arms Łodzia via Wikimedia Commons, source

Ernle Coat of Arms via Wikimedia Commons, source