Recorded in a wide range of spellings including Welling, Walling, and Waylen, this is an English surname. It is locational and is believed to derive from the village name of "Welling", a hamlet situated between the parishes of Bexley and East Wickham in Kent. According to Ekwalls 'Dictionary of English place names', the translation is the "place of the Woelingas". If so this was an Olde English pre 7th century tribal name from "weoh" meaning a (pagan) temple, and "-ing", the people of. The surname is first recorded in the late 13th Century as Wellynge, whilst the spelling as Welling appears three centuries later, when Richard Welling of Lancashire is recorded in the Oxford University Register for 1578, and Elizabeth, the wife of Nathaniell Wellen, was buried in St. Dionis Backchurch, city of London, whilst William Waylen and his wife Margeret were recorded at St Sepulchre church, also city of London, on February 27th 1785. The first recorded spelling of the family name is believed to be that of William de Wellynge. This was dated 1273, in the famous "Hundred Rolls" of the county of Norfolk. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was sometimes known as known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop", often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.