Strother Family History

English: habitational name from a place somewhere in northeastern England formerly called (The) Strother named with Middle English strother struther stroder ‘wooded marshland marsh covered in brushwood’ (Old English strōther). This topographic term was current in Durham, Northumberland, and southern Scotland, but the place which gave rise to the surname has not been certainly identified.

A locality called le strother is recorded near the city of Durham c. 1299, while another recorded as le estrother in 1153–95 may have named Strother House in Boldon (Durham), unless the house was named from the surname. William de Strother was a tenant in nearby Offerton in 1473, and he was probably a member of the Newcastle merchant-cum-gentry family from whom all or most modern bearers inherit their surname.

In Northumberland, possibilities include Cold Strother in Kirkheaton and Haughton Strother, although there is no evidence for either place being known simply as The Strother. Alternatively, The Strother may have been a lost district name for either the marshy area around Cold Strother (north of the North Tyne) or that around Haughton Strother (on the south bank of the North Tyne), but again evidence is lacking.

The (del) Strother family owned estates near (but not in) both places from at least the late 14th century. In southern Scotland, Struther in Lanarkshire and Struthers in Ayrshire and Fife (from the Older Scots equivalent of Middle English strother) might be considered, but for lack of supporting evidence it has been suggested that Scottish Strother is probably the attested Northumberland surname whose bearers were major landholders on the Scottish border.