Law
A name that usually began as a topographic surname for someone who lived by a hill, mound, or low rise.
The #1,089 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 9,612 Americans shares it.
Etymology
This surname is most commonly taken from Old English words such as hlaew or hlǣw, meaning a mound, hill, barrow, or low rise of land. In northern English and Scottish usage, the related word law came to mean a hill or eminence. As a surname, it would originally have described someone who lived near such a place.
History
Lower explicitly glosses Law as a northern word for an eminence and uses that sense to explain the surname. The name is found in Scotland by at least the 14th century, with recorded families of Law of Lawbridge, Boness, and elsewhere. Because law is also a common English word, occasional later spellings or associations may have encouraged folk reinterpretation.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
In Scots place-names, law is still a familiar element meaning a hill, as in many local names ending in -law.
From the historical record
“LAW merly a generic title for very great rascals — whence the celebrated satirical poem, " Cock Lord's Bote," printed by Wynkyn de Worde. See Halliwell. LAURENT. A French modification of Laurence. LAURIE. A northern abbreviation of”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom