SAULTER Family History

This interesting name has two possible origins, the first being an occupational name for an extractor or seller of salt, deriving from the Olde English pre 7th Century "s(e)alt" meaning "salt". The surname from this source is first recorded towards the middle of the 13th Century (see below). One Thomas le Selter appears in the 1296 Subsidy Rolls of Sussex, and a John Saltman is recorded in the Suffolk Pipe Rolls (1327). The second distinct possibility is that the name derives from the Middle English, Olde French "saltere, sautere", meaning a psaltery (a stringed instrument like a harp).