Covey-Crump's parents were named Crump, and they registered him with that name. When he became curate of Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, he again met Reverend Richard Covey (Birmingham – Cambridge 2 August 1903), the unmarried curate of nearby Rampton, and friend of the family who had been bursar of Ayerst Hall when Crump was an undergraduate, and had assisted him with educational sponsorship. The 1891 census finds "Walter William Crump" visiting Covey at his rectory in Dry Drayton parish. Richard Covey drew up his last will in 1901, leaving the most part of his estate to Walter William Crump. There was no suggestion in the will that Crump should add Covey's name to his as a condition of the legacy. Crump took on the additional name of Covey before Richard Covey died. He formalised the name, "Covey", by deed poll on 5 March 1903, shortly before he married; by that time he was already using it as a double-barrelled surname. His immediate family was using the surname, Covey-Crump, by 1911, as recorded in the census, and in the registered surnames of his children.
