This surname was of the baptismal group of surnames 'the son of Albon or Albin' a pet form of Albany. The name was brought into England in the wake of the Norman Conquest of 1066. When the coast of England was invaded by William The Conqueror in the year 1066, the Normans brought with them a store of French personal names, which soon, more or less, entirely replaced the traditional more varied Old English personal names, at least among the upper and middle classes. A century of so later, given names of the principal saints of the Christian church began to be used. It is from these two types of given name that the majority of the English patronymic surnames are derived and used to this day. Early records of the name mention Albin le Porteur, 1273 County Cambridge. Albinus le Albaster, was documented in London during the reign of Edward I (1272-1307). Hugh Albyn of Yorkshire, was listed in the Yorkshire Poll Tax of 1379. Saint Alban (3rd century AD) was a Roman soldier venerated as the first Christian martyr in Briton. He was a pagan Romano-Britain living in the town of Verulamium (now St. Albans) who was scourged and beheaded around 300 AD. for sheltering and giving a change of clothes for a fugitive Christian priest. His feast day is 22nd June. Baptised. Mary Alben, St. James's, Clerkenwell, London in the year 1664. Benign Albin and Louisa Charlier were married at St. George's, Hanover Square, London in 1786. The name is also spelt Albin and Alben. Over the centuries, most people in Europe have accepted their surname as a fact of life, as irrevocable as an act of God. However much the individual may have liked or disliked the surname, they were stuck with it, and people rarely changed them by personal choice. A more common form of variation was in fact involuntary, when an official change was made, in other words, a clerical error. Among the humbler classes of European society, and especially among illiterate people, individuals were willing to accept the mistakes of officials, clerks and priests as officially bestowing a new version of their surname, just as they had meekly accepted the surname they had been born with. In North America, the linguistic problems confronting immigration officials at Ellis Island in the 19th century were legendary as a prolific source of Anglicization.