Butterworth
A Lancashire place-name surname meaning someone from Butterworth near Rochdale.
The #7,597 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 70,570 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Butterworth comes from the English place-name Butterworth in Lancashire, now part of the Rochdale area. The name is usually taken to mean “Butler’s enclosure” or more simply a settlement or enclosed farm associated with a personal name such as Buter/Buter- rather than the dairy product, though older writers sometimes glossed it only as a local name. The final element is Old English worþ, meaning an enclosed settlement or homestead.
History
The surname is recorded by nineteenth-century surname scholars as a local name from the ancient division of Butterworth in the parish of Rochdale, Lancashire. Like many Lancashire locational surnames, it spread beyond the original district as families moved, and it later became established well outside northern England. Modern bearers include a number of notable people in politics, sport, and the arts.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Butterworth is one of several English surnames that look like food words but actually come from old place-names.
From the historical record
“Best, p. 93, 1641). Butterworth.— Local, ' oTBut- lerworth,' an ancient division of the parish of Rochdale, co. Lane. 'ITiis mane has ramified in the mout”
— A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames, with special American instances