Belknap (surname)

Belknap or Belnap is a surname of Norman origin from England that may come from the Anglo-Norman words "belle," meaning beautiful, and "knap," meaning the crest or summit of a small hill.  Although today the "k" in Belknap is generally silent as in the words "knight" or "knee," it is evident from documents dating from the Middle English period that it was originally pronounced as a hard "k."  The surname is relatively infrequent, and most Belknaps or Belnaps in America are thought to descend from one man, Abraham Belknap (formerly known as Beltoft), who migrated from Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, England to Lynn, Massachusetts about 1635.  The surname continued in England. Today, a wide variety of locations and institutions are named Belknap or Belnap, all of which are believed to be connected in some manner to this early Puritan emigrant to America.  Places named Belknap or Belnap include over 130 streets, approximately 20 towns, and 1 U.S. county.  Natural features named Belknap range from a nunatak near the South Pole in Antarctica, to a Canadian cape near the North Pole, to a seamount beneath the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii, to a tiny rocky island in Indonesia in Southeast Asia.

Surname origins
The earliest documentary reference to someone of this name is to John de Belknap, who first appears in Wiltshire in 1327.  He later appears to have moved to London around the time the Black Death arrived in England.  John was the father of Sir Robert Belknap, who served as Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas of England from 1377 to 1388.  The early Belknaps married into a number of notable English families, including the families of Darset, Phelipp, Stonor, Hampden, Boteler, Beauchamp, Sudeley, Avenel, Kymbell, Knollys, Ferrers, Finche, Cooke, Hende, Wotton, Danett, Shelley, Carryll, Scott, and Bishop. Sir Robert's direct descendants include many notable persons, including William Shakespeare, Lady Jane Grey, Sir Francis Bacon, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (through 2 known lines), Princess Diana (through 3 known lines), and England's current reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II (through 6 known lines).

The surname Belknap, as carried through descendants of Sir Robert, appears to have died out with Sir Robert's great grandson, Sir Edward Belknap (about 1471-1521). However, several other males surnamed Belknap, whose connections to Sir Robert are at present unknown, were contemporaries of Sir Robert's family during the 15th and 16th Centuries. The Belknap surname may have continued through one of these other contemporaneous Belknaps through the Beltoft family of Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, who would reside near several of the early manors of the early Belknaps and suddenly assumed or resumed using the surname Belknap in the late 1500s-early 1600s, not long before Abraham Belknap emigrated to Massachusetts in the 1630s.

Variations of the surname Belknap include Belnap, Bellnap, Belknappe, etc.  Many persons who today spell the surname "Belnap" are known to descend from Jesse Belnap (1760-1854), American Revolutionary War soldier.  He was the grandfather of Gilbert Belnap.

People

Abraham Belknap (1589/90-1643), one of the first settlers of New England.
Anna Belknap (b. 1972), American actress
Arias G. Belnap (1893–1974), Utah politician and LDS Church leader
Charles E. Belknap (1846–1929), United States Army Civil War officer and politician from Michigan
Daniel Belknap (1771–1815), early American composer
David F. Belnap (1922–2009), prize-winning American foreign correspondent
 Sir Edward Belknap (ca. 1471-1521), Privy Councillor for the English kings Henry VII and Henry VIII
George Belknap (1832–1903), United States Navy rear admiral and father of Reginald R. Belknap
Gilbert Belnap (1821–1899), early LDS Church leader and colonizer
Hugh R. Belknap (1860–1901), United States Representative from Illinois
Jeremy Belknap (1744–1798), American clergyman and historian
Joanne Belknap, American criminologist
Matt Belknap, American entertainer
Morris B. Belknap (1856-1910), American businessman and Republican nominee for Governor of Kentucky
Morris Burke Belknap (the elder) (1780-1877) Early American iron foundry owner and industrialist.
Nuel Belnap (b. 1930), American logician and philosopher
Reginald R. Belknap (1871–1959), United States Navy rear admiral and son of George Belknap
Robert Bealknap (about 1330-1401), also known as Sir Robert Belknap, Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas of England
W. B. Belknap (1811-1889), founding owner of Belknap Hardware and Manufacturing Company.
W. C. Belknap, (1850–1937), American politician
William Burke Belknap (1885-1965), Kentucky horse and sheep breeder at his Land O'Goshen Farm, economist, politician, academician
William G. Belknap (1794–1851), United States Brigadier General
William Richardson Belknap (1849-1914) president of the Belknap Hardware and Manufacturing Company.
William W. Belknap (1829–1890), Iowa State Representative and United States Secretary of War

See also
Belknap (disambiguation)
Belnap Family Organization

References

External links
Belnap Family Organization