Oxford
A habitational surname from the city of Oxford, originally meaning “the ford of the oxen.”
The #7,387 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 68,473 Americans shares it.
Etymology
This surname is mainly locational, taken from the English city of Oxford. The place-name comes from Old English Oxnaforda, meaning “ford of the oxen,” from oxna, the genitive plural of “ox,” plus ford. In surname use, it would originally have identified someone who came from Oxford or from a place named for a similar ox-ford.
History
The name appears in early surname collections as a straightforward place-derived surname. It is best known through association with the city of Oxford, but the same place-name pattern could also apply to people from other localities called Oxford or Oxenford. Later spellings are simplified to Oxford, which became the standard form.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The city name Oxford does not refer to academic “oxford” anything—it literally began as a river crossing where oxen could ford the water.
From the historical record
“OXENFORDl (Eng.) Bel. to Oxford, the OXFORD J A.-Sax. Oxnaford (as in the OXLEE OXLEY Chronicle A-D. qio— 't6 Oxnaforda') = the Ford of the Oxen [O.E. oxna, genit. pi. ot oxa, an ox -1- ford]”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)