Fife
A Scottish surname most likely taken from the county of Fife, though one old source links it to descent from the earls of Fife.
The #5,202 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 45,951 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Fife is most commonly explained as a locational surname, referring to the Scottish county of Fife. In surname use, it would have identified someone who came from that district or held land there. One 19th-century source also repeats a family tradition that the name came from descent from a younger son of the Earls of Fife, but that looks more like a later genealogical claim than a secure linguistic origin.
History
The name appears in Scotland and later spreads more widely in English-speaking countries, especially through migration. Modern bearers in Britain and North America usually inherit the surname rather than any direct connection to the county itself. Earlier scholarship also treated it as a distinctly Scottish local name.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The county name Fife is so influential in Scottish surname history that older writers sometimes treated Fyfe and Fife as the same family-name tradition.
From the historical record
“varied to Fenes, Feuys, Fynes, and Fines. FIFE. The Scottish county. FIFEIIEAD, The easternmost point of Fifeshire, generally called Fifeness. FIGGr. A Feg occurs in Yorkshire ante 1086. Domesd., and a Figge in Kent .31. Edwd. III. In the latter co. at a later period the Figgs, Faggs, and Foggs flou- rished…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom