Elwood
A surname that may be either a shortened form of an old personal name like Aylward/Æthelwald or a locational name tied to a place called Elwood.
The #6,744 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 61,749 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The name is not securely settled in the older surname books. One line of explanation treats Elwood as a reduced or altered form of the medieval personal name Aylward, and another connects it with Old English names such as Æthelwald, from which forms like Alwoldus or Aldwold are said to descend. Bardsley also raises the possibility that some bearers may instead have taken the name from a place called Elwood, so the surname may have more than one origin.
History
Lower reports Elwood as an old surname in England and cites a Border clan of Elwood in the Elizabethan period. Later surname writers note that the name also appears in Irish and Scottish contexts, where it may have been influenced by or confused with other surnames and place-names. Because the evidence is mixed, modern bearers may descend from different independent lines.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
A 19th-century source even mentions an Elizabethan-era Border clan of Elwood, showing the name had a real presence in frontier family groups, not just in parish records.
From the historical record
“ELWYN. The same as Aylwiu. ELWOOD. Several tenants in chief in Domesd. are called Alwoldus or Aldwold, a contraction of the A-Sax. JEthelwald. Ellis, Introd. i. 373. A border clan of El- wood existed temp. Elizabeth. In a MS. tract copied in Arch<i3ologia, XXII., 1(38, it is stated in reference to Liddesdale, that…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom