Gore
A surname from a narrow strip or wedge-shaped piece of land, especially a corner or spur of ground.
The #1,378 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 12,038 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Gore comes from a topographic word meaning a narrow, triangular, or wedge-shaped piece of land. In Middle English it could describe a small slip of ground, and older Germanic forms were used for a point or projection. As a surname, it likely began as a local description for someone who lived by such a piece of land or at a place called Gore.
History
English records show Gore as a long-standing surname, and related forms such as Goring and Goreway were also treated as local surnames in older name studies. The same word survives in place-names such as Kensington Gore in London, which helps preserve the older sense of the term. Some 19th-century writers also linked the name to specific local places, but the basic topographic explanation is the most secure.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The word gore in surnames is unrelated to the modern meaning “blood” in phrases like “blood and gore.”
From the historical record
“risen above or fallen below that honourable old status." Athenmtm, Sept. 18, 1858. GORE. A " narrow slip of ground," as Kensington Gore. See Faulkner's Kensing- ton, p. G17. GORING. A parish in Sussex where the ancestors of the baronet's itimily were GRA resident at an early period. John dc Goring was lord before…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom