Nettleship Family History

of uncertain origin. It looks like an unrecorded Middle English nedeles-ship ‘extravagance vanity’ from nedeles ‘extravagant unnecessary’ influenced early by netle ‘nettle’; compare Middle English cruelship ‘coarseness’ feintship ‘weakness’ and in surnames Goodship Holdship.

But no early medieval bearers have been found and an alternative possibility is that it is a re-etymologized form of the now extinct Nettleworth with -ship substituted for -worth.

This would be from the the north Notts place-name Nettleworth attested in Alanus de Nettelworth 1287 in Sherwood Forest Eyre; John de Nettleworth 1370 in Inquisitiones post Mortem (Notts); Will'i de Nettilworth 1375 in Mansfield Rentals (Edwinstowe Notts); Rogerus Nettilworth of Chesterfield (Derbys) 1395–6 in Nottingham Borough Records.