Leech
An English surname that originally meant “healer” or “physician,” from an Old English word for a medical practitioner.
The #6,640 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 60,550 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Leech comes from Old English l e6ce, meaning a physician or healer. In medieval English, this was a normal word for a medical practitioner, long before the word later became associated with the blood-sucking creature. The surname was therefore first used for someone who practiced healing, or perhaps for someone thought to be a local healer.
History
The name appears in medieval records and was later sometimes Latinized as Medicus, reflecting its medical sense. It is especially well known in English surname scholarship as an occupational surname, and some families of Leech can be traced in the Midlands and other parts of England. The word later shifted in everyday English so that "leech" came to mean the parasitic worm, but the surname preserves the older occupational meaning.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The same old word that gave the surname Leech also produced the historical medical title "leech" for a doctor, so the name once had a very respectable meaning.
From the historical record
“ley, Shelley, Burleigh. LEECH. A Sax. lace, a physician. " Conscience called a leche To go salve tlio(se) that sike ben." Wright's P. I'loiKjlwian, p. 443. The blood-sucking reptile (liirudo) is so called from its salutary properties. In the South, a village veterinary surgeon calls himself " Horse-Farrier and…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom