Dodd
An old English surname from a short personal name, likely meaning “son of Dodd” in many cases.
The #1,144 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 10,046 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The name is generally taken from the old personal name Doda or Dod, found in early English records. In medieval Latinized forms it appears as Doda, Dode, and Dodo, and surnames such as Dodds and Dodson were built from the same name. The exact origin of the personal name itself is not fully certain, but the surname is clearly patronymic in form: a family name derived from an ancestor’s given name.
History
The name is well attested in medieval English records and has long been especially common in northern English usage, with related forms like Dadd and Dadson noted as regional variants. Later spellings such as Dodds and Dodson spread from the same root. The surname also traveled to North America with English migration, and it remains established in English-speaking countries.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Some 19th-century surname writers treated Dodd and its relatives as examples of how a short medieval pet name could generate a whole cluster of surnames.
From the historical record
“families in the kingdom. DODD. DODDS. Doda, an A -Sax. personal name, whence Dodds, Dodson, &c. Its forms in the H.R. are Dod and Dodde, and in Domesd. Doda, Dode, and Dodo. DODDRIDGE. Evidently local, but I know not the place. De Doderig, H.R., co. Devon. DODGE. A corruption of Dodds, the genitive of Doda. See Dodd.”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom