The Origin of the Name
written by Evelyn Vigeon.
There is a family tradition that the family were Huguenot weavers and many have commented that
they would expect the name to be French. There are certainly Vigeon families living in France -
indeed there is a small place named Vigeon some distance south of Bourges: known members of
the family were a Comte de Vigeon who took part in the battle of the Ile de Rhe in 1627; there was
a lay sister Vigeon of Port Royal de Paris in the mid-17th century, and a schoolmaster Vigeon was
burnt at the stake for sodomy in 1645. There are three artists named in Benizet's Dictionary:
Bernard du Vigeon (1683-1760), a miniaturist; Gerard du Vigeon (17th and 18th century painter);
and L. du Vigeon an 18th century Besançon painter. The 1996 Burke's Peerage Directory of
Vigeons lists 54 households in France, mainly in the Mayenne region. However, The Huguenot
Society of London has been unable to find any Vigeons living in Britain, although there was a family
of Viger in London in the 1700s. They also commented that the settlement of refugees from
Flanders was in the 1580s-90s and they were Walloon refugees who were later joined by French
refugees.
P.H. Reaney in his "Dictionary of British Surnames" derives the name from Vivian giving the various
forms Vivians, Vivien, Vyvyan, Videan, Vidgen, Vidgeon, Vigeon, Fiddian, Fidgen, Fidgeon,
Phethean, Phythian". He gives the French forms Vivian, Vivien (masculine) and the Latin vivianus,
which is a derivative of "vivus" meaning living. He goes on to make the following points: "The
name is that of a fifth century martyr, not uncommon in England from the 12th century onwards.
Its pronunciation appears to have caused difficulty and it is found in a bewildering variety of forms,
not all of which have survived. In the South the 'v' was regarded as the normal southern
pronunciation of 'f' and was replaced by it. As the child says 'fum' for 'thumb' and 'fevver' for 'feather'
and the dialect speaker 'favver' for 'father', Fivian became Fithian and this with the common inter-
change of intervocalic 'th' and 'd' gave Fidian. The initial 'Ph' is merely scribal. As Goodier
become Goodger and Indian is often colloquially Injun, so Fidian became Fidgeon and Vidian
Vidgen. The normal Vivian is much more common than appears from the above forms" (he lists a
number of examples).
The question of whether this derivation or family tradition was correct spurred forward a study of the
family history which has, in fact, proved that Reaney's Dictionary is certainly correct since the name
in Kent reaches back into the 15th century and it seems possible that the family tradition may have
arisen from a note in "The Weald and its Refugee Annals" (Arch.Cant. XXII 1897 p.2l9) where the
name Vidian (Chart-next-Sutton), Kerseymaker, 1636, is included among a selection of names
presumed to be of foreign extraction. A foreigner who did have his name occasionally altered to
Videan, was Bodwen Widien/Widans/Wyden who married and baptised children in Maidstone
between 1655 and 1665. However, another alternative explanation for the tradition is that the
Huguenot weavers were members of another family connected to one of the Vigeon branches i.e.
the Joint family of Ashburton (Joint m. Livermore, m. Martin, m. Ebsworth, m. Vigeon) since an
earlier spelling of this name appears as Ghent, which may suggest an origin in the Low Countries -
although the Huguenots were, of course, French.
In the earliest records of the name there are two main centres for the name: the Medway in West
Kent and Molash and district in East Kent (the Vigeons of the Isle of Sheppey appear to connect
with the Molash family). The name has left its mark on local topography since there is - or was in
1797 according the Edward Hasted - a green in Molash "called from them Videan's (by the
common people Vidgeon's) forstal: Hammond Vidian had a capital messuage here in 1688; and by
1983 there was a Vidgeon Avenue at Hoo St. Werburgh, Rochester. Of no apparent connection is
Arbroath & Saint Vigeans, a parish in Forfarshire with a ruined abbey. (St. Fechin is an Irish saint
who died in AD 644. Translated into Latin this becomes Vigianus)
*Mother Marie des Anges Suireau (1599-1658) entered the Jansenist convent of Port Royal in 1615
and became Abbess of Maubisson in 1626: about 20 years later she was alerted to the intrigues of
the young Catherine-Angélique d'Orleans, natural daughter of the duc de Longueville who wished to
become Abbess by a lay sister Vigeon. (Dictionnaire de Port-Royal au XVIIe siécle: Jean
Lesaulnier & Antony McKenna).
Evelyn Vigeon