The surname
Story (and its variant spelling
Storey) originates from the
Old Norse personal
epithet “Stóri”, a derivative of “Storr” which means “large” or “big”. Even though it has been established that the root of the name is “Storr”, R.E.K. Rigbeye, in his book
The Storey’s of Old claims that the suffix “ey[e]”, in the variant of Storey, is equivalent to the
Icelandic “ig” and signifies “water”. According to him, “Storr” also denotes large in the sense of vast and rough. Rigbeye’s assumption therefore, is that “Storey” means "dweller by large and rough water". This may be explained by the Norse affinity to sea exploration, or the fact that the first Storys settled near the
Lake District, and so the name might refer to the habitation which they chose. The earliest Norse settlement of which the first Storys would have been a part, took place in the 9th century north of
Carlisle near the
Solway Firth. This area then known as
Strathclyde, was situated in the northwestern part of
England, along the
Scottish border. The earliest Storys would have settled on the English side of the border, most likely in the plains along the river
Eden. The English or
Anglo-Saxon population, among whom the Norse settled, spoke a similar language but pronounced many words in a different way. So, “Storr” among the Norse would have been enunciated as “Styr” in English.