Landry
A surname with French roots, most often from the old Germanic personal name Landric, though in some places it may also have been influenced by French place-name forms or by Cornish local names.
The #884 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 7,838 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The best-attested origin is French, from the old Germanic personal name Landric or Landerich, made from elements meaning roughly 'land' and 'power' or 'ruler.' In this sense, Landry began as a surname for someone identified as the son or descendant of a man called Landry. Some Cornish writers also noted a separate local-place explanation in Cornwall, where similar forms may have arisen from Cornish elements such as lan- 'church enclosure' plus another place-name element; this makes the history of the surname a little mixed in Britain.
History
Landry is well established as a French surname and appears in medieval and later French records in several related spellings. English-language surname dictionaries also note it as an imported French name, while a minority of examples in Cornwall may reflect native Cornish naming patterns or later folk-resemblance to local place names. In North America and other English-speaking regions, it is usually associated with French or Franco-Canadian ancestry.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Some older surname writers treated Landry and Laundry as possible variants, but modern onomastics usually separates the French personal-name surname Landry from occupational Laundry unless the historical records clearly show otherwise.
From the historical record
“fortified by a co-existing geographical name, it may not be also of Cornish origin when found in Cornwall : thus Landry is found both in Cornwall and France; but the French name is without doubt corrupted from the ancient Teutonic name Landericus. Lannion is the name of a place in France, C6tes-du-Nord ; but the…”
— Patronymica Cornu-Britannica; or, the etymology of Cornish surnames