Hemingway
A place-based English surname, probably meaning someone from Hemingby or a similar “Heming-” place-name.
The #5,794 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 51,716 Americans shares it.
Etymology
This surname is generally explained as locational, from a place-name such as Hemingby in Lincolnshire. The place-name itself is usually taken to mean “the farm or settlement of Heming’s people,” with the first element going back to the personal name Heming, and the ending referring to a settlement or homestead. Some 19th-century writers also glossed it more loosely as “of Heming’s house” or linked it to a road leading there, but the core idea is the same: a surname for someone who came from a place called Heming- something.
History
Bardsley and Barber both treat Hemingway as an English local surname, with Barber specifically connecting it to Hemingby in Lincolnshire. The name is well established in England and later spread widely, especially in urban records and emigrant communities. The modern fame of the surname is helped by the American writer Ernest Hemingway, though the name itself is much older.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The surname’s spelling can vary quite a bit in old records, but the standard modern form with -way became fixed over time.
From the historical record
“H.taDSxtsvn,j, Hsmmlng- OT»y,HeiiiinawA7,Hemlniray. —Local, ' of Hemingway,' i.e. the road that led to Heming'a house ; V. Hemming (cf. Hemingfield, a viUage near Wombwell, co. York). Representatives of this luuiie will be met with in nearly every town”
— A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames, with special American instances