Meaning of name Redvers (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Friday, January 13, 2012, 14:16 (4776 days ago) @ slowhands

Welldone again Slowhands, fascinating reading there. It's interesting how a person can be such a hero of his age that streets and even a Canadian town were named after him, yet in more recent times he can be ridiculed in military history books. As you probably know the Boer War was the first war in which journalists and the press were closely involved, albeit often heavily censored/controlled, people's reputations could be made or ruined on the back of the resulting national news which may not have been entirely true.

As is often the case with some socalled reference websites, the modern definition of "Redvers" is rather vague;

"Name: Redvers
Origin: English
Meaning: Redvers name means: Name derived from a surname, and only used as a first name since the 19th century.
Gender: Boy"

Hence you're correct stating our forumer's ancestors were named after the General.

I have found this reference suggesting as a surname it's very old indeed and, yet again, of Norman origins.

"The well-known Norman family of De Redvers or Rivers was called in official documents De Ripariis, and sometimes De Ripuariis or De Riveriis. According to Huet, ' Origines de la Ville de Caen,' which is quoted by De Magny in his ' Nobiliaire de Normandie,' this name is derived from a seigneury lying about four leagues from Caen called Reviers, or, in Latin, Ripuariae, an adjectival form which denotes its situation on the banks of several streams. The Counts de Reviers de Mauny still represent one of the principal families of Normandy."

(A seigneury is akin to a Manor in Britain).

PS On the subject of seemingly unusual British names, within my researches I found the girl's name Dardanella, seems rather a mouthfull !. My relatives were baffled by this until I reminded them of the infamous Gallipolli Campaign, this was in the Dardanelles Strait in the Balkans seas. It seems this name was quite widely used toward the end of the Great War, no doubt in honour of the many Allied soldiers & sailors who suffered & died there. With perhaps an echo of General Redvers' career, this shambles of military "planning" was the brainchild of then First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, whose early political career was so damaged he was forced to leave the War Cabinet.