Shakespeare, a farmer and a postal mess » The origins of Radu Drăgușin's team name, Tottenham

Since April 1884, two years after the club was founded, Tottenham's official name is Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. Originally the team was known simply as Hotspur Football Club, having been founded by members of Hotspur Cricket Club who wanted to play another sport only during the winter months and chose football.

However, there was already another club in London called Hotspur FC, and the two clubs were mistakenly receiving each other's mail. The solution was to add Tottenham to Hotspur. Later, the nickname “Spurs” caught on.

The story of the Tottenham team name

The other name considered for the club was Northumberland Roversas the cricket club played in Tottenham's Northumberland Park. However, both the park and the club decided to honor the 14th century Duke of Northumberland, Sir Henry Percy, and received his name, or rather, his nickname, according to abola.pt.

Sir Henry Percy, also known as Harry Hotspur in the play “King Henry IV, Part 1”, a prominent figure in the famous playwright William Shakespeare, and his family owned land in the area known as Northumberland Park and Tottenham Marshes, where the club played its first matches.

Incidentally, the historic building known as Percy House, which is now home to the Tottenham Hotspur Foundation and is right next to the stadium, was built by Sir Hugh Smithson, Duke of Northumberland in the early 1740s, who inherited the fortune and lands of the Percy family of Northumberland, whose ancestor was Harry Hotspur.

But who was Harry Hotspur? Sir Henry Percy was an English knight who fought in several wars against the Scottish army and in the Hundred Years' War against France. He was called Hotspur because the Scots praised his extraordinary speed on horseback. It was said that he had to have “hot spurs”, or rather, hot spurs, in his boots so that the horse could run so fast… and hence his nickname.

On the other hand, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, Hotspur is defined as a person who is “hasty or impetuous”, and some say the nickname was given to him by the Scots, because of his aggressive fighting style.

And finally, where does the name Tottenham come from? To discover the origin of the name, one must go back to the 7th century, in the heart of Anglo-Saxon England. The area was originally a rural settlement, part of the Kingdom of Essex, and its name derives from Old English. The first part of the name, Tot, is believed to be a reference to a person, Tota.

The second part, “ham,” is an Old English word meaning “household” or “village.” Therefore, Tottenham roughly translates to “Tota's country estate” or “Tota's Village”.

But who was Tota? The first recorded mention of Tottenham is found in the Domesday Book of 1086, which refers to Tottenham as a settlement in the hundred of Edmonton in the county of Middlesex. At the time, the area was still predominantly rural and agricultural, with the land worked by peasants under the rule of local lords, so it is assumed that Tota was an agriculturist.