Bucklin Name Variations

BUCKLIN NAME.  Early records in the New World not only sometimes show William's name as Bucklin, but also sometimes as "Bucklen", "Buckline", "Bucknam", and "Buckland.  The records we have in the 1600-1700 period are written by persons who wrote the names as they thought they heard them pronounced. The first written record of William in New England is the Hingham record which spells his name as "Wm. Buckland" for his land grant. We have no documents known to have been signed by William Bucklin.

The spelling in England of the name that sounded like William's surname at the time of William's immigration was commonly  "Buckland", although the "Bucklen", "Buckline", "Bucknam" variations are not unknown.  Researchers in England maintain that also "Buckler" was a sound-alike variation of "Buckland." 

As written records became prevalent,  the children of William Bucklin used the spelling "Bucklin" in most of the records.  At any rate, the spelling in New England, by the third generation of William's offspring was firmly "Bucklin". All the persons in the United States who have the surname "Bucklin" are almost certainly descendants of William.

Occasionally, in the 1800's (19th century) a person whose father was a Bucklin would decide with the knowledge of youth that the "correct" spelling of the name was something else, and would start using another spelling, sometimes Buckland, or Bucklen, or Bucklyn, depending on their own view of history and their own ear for what the name sounded like to them.  The name variations seemed to have died out by the 20th century.

There appear to be persons named Buckland, not of William's family, in Massachusetts at the end of the 1600's. [ See Filby & Meyer, Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, (1981), the Guildhall Library, London.]  But these persons had offspring who maintained the Buckland name as written records became prevalent.