How the name DOBBS came to be way back in history

This information if from a post made on Ancestry.com by Jeff Thomas. He got the information from a book about the Dobbs families entitled "Gone to Alabama" by Edward Ladd.

The Surname Dobbs comes from the combination of DOB, a nickname for Robert and the S meaning "Son of". Families bearing this name were estimated at early dates in Oxfordshire, Norfolk, Yorkshire, Hartfordshire, and Glouscestershire in and about the city of London, and Scotland and Ireland, having come to the British Isles, at the time of the Norman conquest. They were largely of the lesser nobility. Among the earliest records of the name in England are those of Dobbs de Languel, who was living in Oxford in 1273. A Sir Richard Dobbs is recorded as having been Lord Mayor of London in 1551.


I have the genealogy all the way back to Richard and I found a UK website that lists his father's name as Robert.