Edge
A topographic surname for someone who lived at the edge, boundary, or margin of a place.
The #3,119 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 26,717 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Edge comes from Middle English egge/edge, used for a border, margin, or brink, and ultimately from Old English ecg/edge in related sense. In surname use, it most often described someone who lived by the edge of a settlement, field, bank, or boundary. Some 19th-century writers also treated it as a shortened local-name surname, especially for people from places called Edge.
History
The name is recorded in medieval English sources as a residence-based byname, and later became established as an inherited surname. Bardsley specifically notes local associations such as Edge in Shropshire, suggesting that some families took the name from that place rather than from a generic topographic description. The surname is still found in England and in countries shaped by English migration, including the United States.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Aldersey Edge in Cheshire is one of the place-names that older surname writers used to explain some Edge families.
From the historical record
“Dweller at i the (River-) Bank or Shore Stronghold [O.E. 6fer, a bank, shore, edge -I- burh (dat. byrig), a fortified place]. 2 the Upper, or Higher, Stronghold [O.E. ofer,^ upper; ufera (cpv.), higher, upper]”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)