Laird
A Scottish surname meaning “lord” or “landowner,” often first used as a title or nickname for the head of a household or estate.
The #1,929 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 16,514 Americans shares it.
Etymology
This surname comes from the Scottish word laird, meaning “lord” or “landowner,” and in practice a “country gentleman” or estate proprietor. It is ultimately the Scottish form of Lord, used as a title in Scotland and then adopted as a surname. Some later surname forms such as Layard were also explained as variants of Laird by older writers.
History
Historical surname dictionaries treat Laird as characteristically Scottish. In Scotland, the word was widely used for the owner or head of an estate, and some families appear to have taken it as a hereditary surname from that status or as a nickname. The surname also spread beyond Scotland through migration, especially into England and North America.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older Scottish writers noted how commonly people would refer to an estate owner simply as “the laird” of a place, which helped the word live on as a surname.
From the historical record
“LAIMSON. The sou of Alain or Alan. LAIRD. The Scottish form of Lord. ^p° LAKE. A termination of many names of places and families, as Kerslake, Shiplake, Aslake, Timberlake, West- lake, Eastlake. Probably not from lacus, a lake, as no consideralile body of Waaler exists in some of the localities so called ; but…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom