I make this comment only because Neil mentioned another origin. I believe some Bonners will find that their Bonner line goes back to the name "Riddell". In at least this one case, the name "Bonner" was chosen specifically as a surname derivative, and for some time the two names should have been synonymous. Cheers, Gregg -----Original Message----- From: Neil Bonner To: [email protected] Sent: 7/23/02 1:17 PM Subject: Re: [BONNER] Banner (Bonner???) June, My research into the Bonner name reveals that BONNER, BONER, BANNER all refer to the same "line" or population. Before the 20th Century most names were spelt phonetically. I have numerous examples of the Bonner's in Philadelphia during the nineteenth century with the name spelt in a number of different variations. In legal documents it may have been written as, BONER, and several years later, BONNER, and then possibly BANNER. As the immigrants married and had children, these children were schooled and became literate. Once they were able to read and write, the amount of variation in the spelling was greatly reduced. Also with the increase in secular record keeping (state birth records) things became more standardized. At least for the Irish Catholic population, BONER was the 'standard' way our surname was spelled in Ireland from the late 1600's to present. In the "Primary Valuation Property Survey of 1846 - 1864" in Ireland, here are the variant spellings for all of the households surveyed: BONER 209, BONAR 46, BONNER 17, BONNAR 3, BONOR 3. It's my opinion that since BONNER "sounds" better than BONER, BONNER became the preferred surname of choice in the United States. Also, these names (BONNER, BONER) are the Anglicized versions. The original Irish was "Ua Chnámhsighe". Quoting from the Irish historian, Brian Bonner, in his article entitled, "Clann Chnámhsighe: A Donegal Sept" he writes: "In the process of the Anglicisation of Gaelic surnames the name, Ua Chnámhsighe, was given a number of variants depending on an arbitrary dropping of "Ua" and making the rest of the name conformable to easy pronunciation according to English phonetics one agent wrote CRAMPSEY, changed by some to CRAMSIE, etc... Another official based his form on the word "cnámh" a bone and recorded the name as BONNER with its variants of BONER, BONNAR and BONAR. There is also a surname BONNER in England and Scotland deriving from a totally different stem." [Brian Bonner, "Clann Chnámhsighe: A Donegal Sept", Donegal Annual, periodical no. 3, 1979, p. 392.] This same article relates an ancient folklore tradition of how the name originally arises and geographically where it was found. All very interesting. I hope I have not gone on too much in answering your original query. Best Regards, Neil Bonner