Guthrie
A Scottish locational surname taken from Guthrie in Forfarshire (Angus), a place-name long associated with the family ‘of that Ilk.’
The #1,095 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 9,662 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The surname is generally taken from the place-name Guthrie in Forfarshire, Scotland. Older writers proposed folk etymologies, including links with words meaning ‘war’ or ‘warrior,’ but the place-name origin is the safer explanation. The deeper meaning of the place-name itself is not fully certain and has attracted speculative interpretations over time.
History
The Guthries were a known landed family in Angus, and the name is closely tied to the estate of Guthrie and the phrase ‘of that Ilk.’ The surname spread beyond Scotland through migration, especially to England and North America. Nineteenth-century surname writers also recorded a number of imaginative but less reliable folk explanations for the name.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The Guthries are one of the Scottish families often described as being ‘of that Ilk,’ meaning the family took its surname from its own ancestral estate.
From the historical record
“the Fr. grierricr, a warrior. GUTHRIE. An estate in Forfarshire, Scotland. This might be considered a tolerably satisfactory origin for the name, especially as the family continue to vrvxie themselves 'of that Ilk,' to the present day. Tradition, however, has invented another, which is amusingly absurd ; I give it…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom