Ruff
Usually a nickname from Old French and Latin roots meaning “red” or “red-haired,” though some early sources also connect it with Rolf/Rudolph.
The #2,369 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 20,071 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Historical surname writers give two main explanations. One derives Ruff from Old French Ruf/Ruffe, ultimately from Latin rufus, meaning “red” or “red-haired,” a common source of nicknames. Another treats it as a reduced or altered form of Rolf or Rudolf, through popular medieval name forms such as Rolf and related spellings.
History
The name appears in medieval and early modern records in several spellings, and 19th-century surname books treat Ruff as part of a wider cluster of short forms and variant spellings around Rolf/Rudolf. In later surname study, it is also often grouped with nicknames based on hair color or complexion. Because both explanations occur in the older literature, the surname may not have a single origin in every family line.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Some older writers also tried to connect Ruff with the word “ruff,” the high Elizabethan collar, but that is usually treated as a separate word history rather than the surname’s main source.
From the historical record
“red] RUFF I the French Ruf, Ruffe = the Red, Red-Haired [Lat. ruf-us] 2 an assim. form of Rolf, Rodolf, q.v. RUFFELL"! (A.-Fr.-LatJ the French Ruffel = RUFFLE /the Red, Red-Haired [ f. Lat. ruf-us, red -I- the Fr. dim. suff. -el, Lat. ■ell-us]”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)