Cowden

Etymology

This name is best explained as locational: it points to a place called Cowden. In Old English, the first element is usually taken as cū, meaning “cow,” while the second is commonly linked with dūn, “hill,” giving a sense like “cow hill” or “hill where cows grazed.” That is the standard historical explanation behind several English place-names of this type, and the surname would originally have meant “from Cowden.”

History

The surname appears in English records and was later carried to Scotland and North America. Some historical surname books group Cowden with other place-based names formed from animal terms, and they also note families of the name in Britain. It is also preserved as a Scottish territorial surname in aristocratic and landholding lines, as in “of Cowden.”

Origin

Regions

Variant spellings

Fun fact

Cowden is one of several surnames that look like animal names but are actually derived from old place-names rather than from a person's occupation or character.