Rea Surname Origin

Rea was ranked ranked 2423 in surname popularity in the 2000 US census. That is up from 2653 in 1990. So we are moving on up! It is a difficult surname as you can spell it or pronounce it, but you cannot do both without prior knowledge. If you asked my young children their last name, they would respond "Ray, R E A". That was what my wife habitually said when asked. However hard this surname is to pronounce or spell, the origin is even harder to trace.

My ancestors came from the British Isles. There surnames were not needed until individuals were taxed, which was in the 13th or 14th century. Generally, people took their surname from their occupation {Smith, Fletcher, and so on) or from place names. The river Rea is a small river in Hereford and Worchester County near the Welsh border with England. A large tome I consulted in a used bookstore years ago stated that the river name was the source of the Rea surname. That book was in the hernia class in terms of heft, so I give this explanation the most weight. For other opinions, just Google "Rea surname origins". You will find more than 2423 others.

It is my conviction that Rea is not the result of spelling variations, because it is not an intuitive spelling. Language tends to become simpler with use. The fact that Rea has maintained this non-intuitive spelling, means it is somehow important. Which leads me again to the river name origin.

The harder question is tie this surname to the Quaker roots of my family. The bulk of the Quaker migration from the British Isles came from the north midlands of England. This does border Scotland, and Glasgow is closer to that border area than the most common choices of London or Bristol for their trip to America. Wales was another source of the Quaker migration, making it close to both the River Rea and the port of Bristol. It would be nice to find some passenger lists with Matthew Rea on them in the late 17th or early 18th century. Reas did land in America as far south as the Carolinas in that era. But any of Quaker origin soon moved north or west because of the slavery issue. Slavery cannot be reconciled with that faith and they all left fairly quickly.