Patch
An English surname that may come from an old personal name, a place-name, or even a nickname for a jester or fool.
The #8,669 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 81,463 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Historical surname writers give more than one possible source for Patch. One line of explanation treats it as a form of French/Anglo-French names such as Pache or Pachel, which were linked by older scholars to forms related to Easter/Paschal names; another suggests it may reflect an early personal name behind place-names like Patcham and Patching. A third possibility is that it began as a nickname for a domestic fool or clown, from the English word patch used in that sense.
History
The surname is recorded in medieval-looking spellings such as Pachet, Pachot, and Patchet in older English sources, showing a family of related forms rather than a single fixed spelling. It also appears in place-name evidence from Sussex and elsewhere, which is why some writers thought it could have both local and personal-name roots. In later English usage, Patch survived as both a surname and an ordinary word, which adds to the difficulty of pinning down one origin with certainty.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older surname books note that Patch was sometimes linked with medieval forms recorded in tax rolls, including spellings like Pachet and Pachot.
From the historical record
“Barton) ; tun, estate, etc.] PATCH (A.-Fr.) the French Pache, prob. f. Teut. : V. undet Pack (A.-Fr.») (Eng.) I a palatal form ol Pack, q.v. Cp.' Pp.tching. 2 JESTER, Clown [f. E. patch, an in- serted piece of cloth] (Northants), the A.-Sax. Passan-hdm =”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)