Sumsion Family History

English: of uncertain origin. It looks like Middle English sumpcion somsion a shortened form of assumpcioun ‘assumption’ denoting the Feast of the Assumption (15 August) and the word might have been used as a personal name or nickname for someone born on or around that date. However no evidence has been found for this and it is more likely that Sumsion is an altered form of some other name.

A patronymic ‘son of Somme’ is apparently attested in 1381 in Shropshire but the identity of the personal name is unknown and patronymics in -son were not common in Devon or Wiltshire where Sums(i)on seems to have originated. In that part of England names in -son are often habitational in origin so one possibility is that it is a shortened form of Summerson.

However two different names may simply have been confused in speech or in writing through their similarity. The change of -son to -sion -tion and -shon is the result of palatalization of /s/.