DuBois
A French surname meaning “from the wood,” originally used for someone living near or in a wood or grove.
The #1,539 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 13,213 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Dubois is a French place-based surname built from the preposition du, meaning “of the” or “from the,” and bois, meaning “wood.” The literal sense is “of the wood” or “from the woods,” a medieval-style name for someone who lived by a wooded area. Earlier Latinized forms such as De Bosco point to the same meaning.
History
The name is widespread in French-speaking regions and also appears in many related French surname forms, such as Dubos, Dubosc, and Duboscq. English surname writers regularly compared it with English Wood and Attwood as an equivalent meaning. It became especially familiar outside France through migration to North America and other French diasporas.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
19th-century surname writers often treated Dubois as the French counterpart of the English surname Wood.
From the historical record
“DUBOC DUBOIS DUBOS DUBOSC DUBOSQ DUBUC DUBUS .”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)