Fulford
A place-based surname meaning “someone from Fulford,” from English places named with a ford near or by a foul, marshy stream.
The #8,029 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 74,884 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Fulford is a locational surname taken from one or more English places called Fulford. The name is usually explained from Old English fulla or ful, meaning “foul” or “dirty,” plus ford, “river crossing,” giving the sense of a muddy or unclean ford. In some cases the place-name may also have referred to a stream or marshy ground associated with the crossing.
History
The surname appears in medieval records in several parts of England, especially in Devon and Yorkshire, and later spread through families who took their name from these places. Lower notes a long-standing Devon family of Fulford, while Bardsley points to northern bearers probably deriving from Fulford in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The name is therefore a classic English toponymic surname with more than one possible local source.
Origin
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Fun fact
A well-known Devon branch of the Fulford family traditionally associated itself with Great Fulford, and later genealogists treated that line as especially prominent.
From the historical record
“rishes in cos. Warwick, Oxon, &c. FULFORD. Tlie family assert a Saxon origin, and are said to have held Folefort, now Great Fulford, co. Devon, temp. Wil- liam I. William de F., who held the estate temp. Eichard I. is the first ascertained ancestor. His lineal descendant, Baldwin Fulford, Esq., still possesses it.…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom