Jeffery
A medieval name from Geoffrey/Godfrey, ultimately built on an old Germanic personal name meaning “peace of God.”
The #3,638 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 31,614 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Jeffery is a surname taken from the medieval personal name Geoffrey, with spelling variants such as Jeffery and Jeffrey. The name goes back through Old French and Norman forms to a Germanic original usually given as Godfrid or Godfrey: “god” plus a word for “peace.” In medieval England the forename developed many spellings, and surnames formed from it produced Jeffery, Jeffrey, Jeffs, Jefferson, and related forms.
History
Medieval records show Geoffrey as a common personal name in England after the Norman Conquest, while the surname forms came later from descendants or associates of men called Geoffrey/Jeffrey. Early surname writers treat Jeffery as part of a larger family of surnames built from the same forename. The spelling Jeffery has remained in use alongside Jeffrey, with the two often overlapping in practice.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older surname dictionaries often grouped Jeffery with many other forms because medieval spellings of the same given name could vary wildly from record to record.
From the historical record
“JEFFERSON, See Jeffery. JEFFERY. JEFFERAY. The Teu- tonic personal name Godfridus, whence also Godfrey. In Domesday the ordinary form is Goisfridus. From it we get the modifi- cations and derivatives, Jefferson, Jcaf- freson, Jeffries, Jeff cries, Jefferiss, Jefl', Jeffs, JeiAson, Jepson, Jeffcock, Jefkins, with…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom