Agneau

Recorded as De Lagne, Delagnes, Delagneaux, Agnel, Lagnau, Lagne, Lagnes, Lagneux and others this is a French surname. It is apparently locational from a place in Normandy, translating as "The place of the lambs". Whether this is literally a reference to sheep farming or has a religious meaning possibly connected with the Crusades is uncertain. Locational surnames are usually either names given to the land or estate owning family for the area, or what may be the same thing, to former inhabitants of that place who moved somewhere else, and thereafter were best or most easily identified by so- named. Spelling over the centuries being at best indifferent and local accents very thick, usually lead to the creation of variants forms, as in this name. French church registers before the Napoleonic Period 1794 - 1815, are at best erratic and usually non existent, most being destroyed during the worst of the famous Revolution of 1789 - 1793. At this time the church was totally banned, and registers deliberately destroyed as instruments of the dreaded secret police. Surviving examples taken at random include Nicolas Lagneaux of St Marcel, Ardennes, on October 9th 1672, Christophe Lagne of Ansauville, Meurthe et Moselle, on February 16th 1790, and Camille Delagneaux on August 2nd 1902 at Jouy le Chatel, Seine et Marne.