Duffield
An English place-name surname meaning someone from Duffield, Derbyshire, or one of the Yorkshire places of the same name.
The #8,271 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 77,013 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Duffield is a locational surname taken from places in Derbyshire and Yorkshire. The name is generally understood to contain the old word for a hill or slope-like field element, though 19th-century writers sometimes treated it as simply a place-name with no further certain division. The surname therefore means, in effect, 'one from Duffield.'
History
The surname appears in medieval records with spellings such as de Driffeld, showing the older locative use with 'de' meaning 'of.' It later spread beyond the original localities and developed common spelling variants as the final element was simplified or altered in handwriting and print. By the 19th and 20th centuries it was established in England and also well represented in emigrant English-speaking populations, including the United States.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Bardsley notes that Duffield often appears in records with the ending reduced or altered, which is why variants like Duffill and Duffell turn up beside the standard form.
From the historical record
“Jamieson. DUFFIELD. A parish in co. Derby, and tAvo toAvnships in Yorkshire. DUFFUS. A parish on the coast of jMorayshire, Scotland. The name may, hoAvever, be a corruption of Dovehouse, like Bacchus from Backhouse, or Maithus from Malthouse. In support of the latter derivation, avc may cite the de Duffus, del…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom