Ash
A mostly English surname for someone who lived by an ash tree, with some cases also linked to places called Ash.
The #1,709 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 14,681 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Ash comes from the Old English word for the ash tree, a familiar landscape marker in medieval England. As a surname, it usually began as a local name for someone who lived near an ash tree or in a place called Ash. In some records, the older phrase meaning “at the ash tree” was shortened over time into Ash and Ashe.
History
The name is well attested in medieval English records and appears in both simple local forms and older prepositional forms such as Atten-Ash/Atte Ash. Dictionaries also note place-name origins in several English counties, so the surname can have more than one local source. In Ireland, some bearers belong to later-established families of Scottish origin, but that is a separate branch from the English place-name surname.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older spellings sometimes preserved the full phrase “at the ash tree,” which eventually got compressed into the modern surname.
From the historical record
“ASH The influential family of this name in Ire- land, of Scottish origin, settled there on the attainder of Sir Thomas A. for the Ej'e House Plot, and they still enjoy large estates in King's co., and in cos. Limericl^, Tipjie- rary, &c. The A's, of Fermanagh, who claim descent from a hrother of the celebrated…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom