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In my travels I have met very few people with the name Antrobus, indeed only once have I met someone called Antrobus that is not a close relative. The name Antrobus seems to be very sparse but occasionally I meet people who say they have met someone with the Antrobus name, because that is in itself such a rare event even that is big news.
Perhaps the sparse number of people who have this often considered unusual sounding name comes down to where it originated from. Back in the 1920s a Reginald Antrobus produced a pedigree of the Antrobus family and went some way in trying to include every person who had ever had the name. It was not a large book, covering barely one hundred pages, although he did conclude that there were some branches that he had failed to include. In his studies he concluded that every person who bears the name Antrobus is descended from the same person who lived back in the fourteenth century and who had the name of his village as his family name, "De Antrobus". The earliest contemporary record that mentions someone with the name Antrobus, according to Reginald Antrobus' work, is a William de Antrobus who purchased some land in Rushton, Cheshire in 1360. The 'de' in the name suggests that he was of the Hamlet of Antrobus, i.e. that he was probably born in the Hamlet or village of Antrobus.
The village of Antrobus is about five miles north of the town of Northwich in Cheshire and its first mention in written record is in the Domesday Book, where it is mentioned twice under the spelling 'Entrebus'. It is however described as 'waste' which means it is uninhabited and not in use. Throughout its history the land in which Antrobus lies has been very rural with a scattered population. Since few people have lived there over time there would not be many people to use the 'de Antrobus' expression before surnames became standard in the 14 th century. So when Surnames where adopted not many people would have taken up Antrobus as their family name. Hence Reginald Antrobus may well have been right to say that everyone born with the name Antrobus is probably descended from the same family.
The origin of the name is uncertain, however the name has an obvious Latin appearance, hence it has traditionally been suggested that Entrebus is a location word, describing the location of a dwelling, and can be split up into two words of Latin origin, 'Entre' and 'Bus'. Entre is a Latin origin word meaning between or amongst - as is its meaning still in both French and Spanish today. The 'Bus' part of the name is thought to be a Latin origin word for bush or shrub, such as a form of the French word arbuste where part of the word is used. Hence a dwelling amongst bushes is described. There are few Latin derived place names in England today, not since Roman times at least. After the Romans left nearly all the Latin names were changed, such as the Roman name Eboracum being changed to York or Yorvik. This is what makes the Antrobus name seem unusual; it seems very unlikely this is a latin name that has survived in use since Roman times.
More recently the suggestion has been made on several websites that the name is probably derived from a Norse name from the Viking era. The suggestion is that the name is derived from "Eindrithi" or "Andrithi". This personal name is said to have been combined with the old norse word 'buski', meaning bush or thicket. Hence the name means Andrithi's thicket. This Andrithi must have been a viking invader who settled in the Antrobus area during Anglo Saxon times, it falls in the area that was once the Danelaw, the area of England that fell under Viking control during the time of King Alfred. It would be interesting to know if this information was found from contemporary records, or was it concluded from out of research? The name Andrithi/Eindrithi is certainly unusual and does not appear to be in use today making the origin of this theory all the more intriguing.