Montgomery
A surname taken from the Norman place name Montgomery, most famously the Welsh town and county named for its castle hill.
The #263 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 2,663 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Montgomery is a habitational surname from the place name Montgomery in Wales. The place was associated with the Norman family of Roger de Montgomery, and older scholarship explains the name as meaning something like "Gomeric's hill" or "the hill of Gomeric," combining a Germanic personal name with Latin/French elements for "mount" or "hill." The Welsh name Tre-Faldwyn, meaning "Baldwin's town/place," refers to a different local naming tradition for the same settlement.
History
The surname spread through England and then more widely through Britain and Ireland as a hereditary family name tied to Norman landholding and the prestige of the Montgomery earls. In English-language usage it became established both as a noble surname and as a general locational surname for people from the town or county. It is now common in the United States, carried by descendants of British and Irish Montgomery families as well as later migrants.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The Welsh town of Montgomery was once known as Tre-Faldwyn, a name that survives in older Welsh historical sources.
From the historical record
“Eufe Dept. MONTGOMERY (A.-Fr.-Lat. -f- ? Teut.) Bel. to Montgomery = the (Castle-) Hill of GOMERIC. The Welsh town Of Montgomery — formerly called by the Welsh Tre- Faldwyn, or ' Baldwin's (6 mutated to /) Place', from a lord of the marches temp. . William L — rose around the castle which was recaptured from the…”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)