Dillow
An old English surname probably developed as a short form of an ancient Germanic personal name, later recorded in several English and continental variants.
The #9,389 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 89,130 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The surname is generally treated as a shortened form of an old Germanic personal name rather than as a place-name or occupational term. Nineteenth-century surname scholars grouped Dillow with Dill, Dilley, Dilke, and related forms, tracing them back to ancient names such as Old High German Dilli or Thilo and other similar diminutive forms. The exact original meaning is uncertain, and older writers proposed different roots, so the safest view is that it began as a personal-name surname built from a very old Germanic stem.
History
The name appears in historical surname studies as part of a family of English and continental forms including Dill, Dilley, Till, and Tilley. Ferguson and Lower both treat Dillow as one of several related surnames preserved in England from medieval or earlier Germanic naming stock. Modern bearers are relatively uncommon, and the name seems to have remained a minor English surname rather than spreading widely.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Nineteenth-century onomastic writers liked to treat Dillow as part of a whole cluster of related names, almost like a surname family tree with Dill, Dilley, Dilke, and Till all branching from the same ancient stock.
From the historical record
“of the name. DILLOW. See Dilke. DILLWYN. A parish in Herefordshire. DIMBLEBY. A corruption of Thimble- by, places in cos. York and Lincoln. DIMMACK. See Dymock. DII\LMOCK. See Dymock. DIMOND. See Diamond.”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom