Ashby
A common English place-based surname meaning “from Ashby,” originally referring to one of several towns or villages named Ashby.
The #2,069 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 17,661 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Ashby is a locational surname taken from place-names in England called Ashby. The name is usually explained as coming from Old English ash and Old Norse b dr, meaning a farm or settlement, so the literal sense is roughly “ash-tree farm” or “settlement by the ash trees.” Some historical writers also treated particular Ashby places as the source of the surname, rather than one single origin point.
History
The surname appears in medieval records in several spellings, including Ashby, Ashbee, and Ashbey. Because there were many places called Ashby, the surname arose independently in more than one locality. It is especially associated with counties such as Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, and Norfolk in older surname lists.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
There are so many English places named Ashby that nineteenth-century surname writers treated it as a classic example of a widespread locational surname.
From the historical record
“against '^\'illianl. Peerage. ASHBY. A local name occurring 1 8 times in the Gazetteer, mostly in the cos. of Lin- coln, Leicester, and Northampton. ASHCOMBE. Places in Devonshire, Sussex, &c. ASHCONNER. An old method of divi- nation by ashes is mentioned by Herrick, i., 17(5.”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom