Laws
A surname most likely from the name Law, often a patronymic or plural family form, and sometimes linked to legal office or status.
The #2,486 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 21,277 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Laws is usually understood as a family form of the surname Law, with the final -s often meaning "son of" or simply marking a clan or household name. In Britain, Law itself can come from a topographic word for a hill or from short forms of personal names, so Laws may have multiple parallel origins. Some older writers also connected Law-family surnames with legal or administrative terms, but that explanation is less secure for this exact form.
History
The surname is well established in England and Scotland and appears in historical records as early as the 16th century in the excerpts provided. Because Law is a common base surname, Laws likely arose independently in more than one place rather than from a single ancestor. In modern usage it remains fairly uncommon but is familiar enough to be recognized immediately as a British-style surname.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Old surname dictionaries sometimes grouped Law, Laws, Lawless, and similar names together because they all seemed to spring from the same short root, though not all of those connections hold up equally well.
From the historical record
“i;To the woodward belongs each wind- felled tree).— .Rert; Sing, ^ers.; Thorpe, . ^ Anc. Laws, p. 188.' , In the Latin transl. of the above A.-Sax. law the woodward is described as "custos nemoris vel forestarius."”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)