Farnsworth
An English habitational surname meaning “fern enclosure” or “fern homestead,” from places called Farnworth.
The #2,939 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 25,301 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Farnsworth is a habitational surname taken from a place name, most likely Farnworth in Lancashire. The first element is Old English "fearn," meaning fern; the second is "worth," meaning an enclosed homestead, farm, or settlement. So the name originally meant something like “the fern farm” or “fern enclosure.”
History
The name is recorded in England quite early, and 19th-century surname writers connected it with the Lancashire chapelries of Farnworth. It later spread beyond its original locality and is now best known in English-speaking countries, especially the United States. Guppy’s county data also shows it as an established but not especially common English surname in the 19th century.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Because "worth" once meant an enclosed farmstead, surnames like Farnsworth preserve a bit of everyday Anglo-Saxon landscape vocabulary.
From the historical record
“FARNSWORTH. Farnworth, two chapelries in Lancashii-e. FARNHAM. Parishes, Src., In cos. Surrey, Dorset, Essex, Northumberland, Suffolk, Yorkshire, Bucks, &c. The sur- name occurs in co. Leicester, before the reign of Edw. I. B.L.G. FARQUHAR. A common Scottish sur- name— the same as the Irish Ferchard, an”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom