The name of his father, who was a butcher in the parish of St.
Giles, Cripplegate, was Foe.

His grandfather was a Northamptonshire yeoman.

In his _True Born Englishman_, Defoe spoke very contemptuously of families that professed to have come over with "the Norman bastard," defying them to prove whether their ancestors were drummers or colonels; but apparently he was not above the vanity of making the world believe that he himself was of Norman-French origin.

Yet such was the restless energy of the man that he could not leave even his adopted name alone; he seems to have been about forty when he first changed his signature "D.

Foe" into the surname of "Defoe;" but his patient biographer, Mr.
Lee, has found several later instances of his subscribing himself "D.
Foe," "D.F.," and "De Foe" in alternation with the "Daniel De Foe," or "Daniel Defoe," which has become his accepted name in literature.
In middle age, when Defoe was taunted with his want of learning, he retorted that if he was a blockhead it was not the fault of his father, who had "spared nothing in his education that might qualify him to match the accurate Dr.Browne, or the learned Observator." His father was a Nonconformist, a member of the congregation of Dr.Annesley, and the son was originally intended for the Dissenting ministry.