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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English and Scottish : metonymic occupational name for a maker of hoods or a nickname for someone who wore a distinctive hood, from Middle English hod(de), hood, hud ‘hood’. Some early examples with prepositions seem to be topographic names, referring to a place where there was a hood-shaped hill or a natural shelter or overhang, providing protection from the elements. In some cases the name may be habitational, from places called Hood, in Devon (possibly ‘hood-shaped hill’) and North Yorkshire (possibly ‘shelter’ or ‘fortification’).
  • Irish : Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó hUid ‘descendant of Ud’, a personal name of uncertain derivation. This was the name of an Ulster family who were bards to the O’Neills of Clandeboy. It was later altered to Mac hUid. Compare Mahood.

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