Conde
A surname usually linked to a place-name in France, especially towns called Condé, rather than to the aristocratic title itself.
The #3,423 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 29,602 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The surname is most often explained as coming from a French place-name, especially Condé in northern France, which is how several 19th-century surname writers describe it. In that reading, the name is locational: someone was identified as being from Condé, and the place-name later became a hereditary surname. Some older writers also floated other explanations, but the place-name origin is the clearest and best supported by the excerpts.
History
Historical surname books connect Conde with places called Condé in regions such as Hainault, Somme, and Eure, and note related forms like Condy and Cundy. Because French noble titles such as the Princes de Condé were famous, the spelling could invite assumptions of aristocratic origin, but the surname itself was generally treated as geographic. The form also appears in broader European naming traditions and may overlap with similar-looking surnames in Spanish contexts.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
A 20th-century source notes that the maker of Condy’s disinfecting fluid was not descended from the famous Princes de Condé, just sharing a place-name connection.
From the historical record
“102 ETYMOLOGICAL DICTIONARY CONDE. May be a local name from the town of Conde, in the French part of Hainault, which gave its name to a branch of the royal family of France, the Princes of Conde. Kun- dig or kundy, Dutch, signifies knowing, skillful, expert. CONDER. Conders were persons stationed upon high places…”
— An Etymological Dictionary of Family and Christian Names