Pease
Usually a surname from the word for peas, though some families may have taken it from place-names or from a nickname form of Peace/Pace.
The #2,790 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 23,865 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The surname Pease most often points to the common word for peas, and in some cases it was probably a metonymic occupational name for a pea seller or grower. Some 19th-century writers also treated it as a variant of Peace/Pace, and a few linked it to place-names or to local features such as a ravine or peaty ground. Because several similar surnames overlapped in medieval records, more than one origin may apply to different families.
History
Medieval records show early spellings such as Pese, and later writers noted the name in Yorkshire and elsewhere in England. The surname also appears in Scottish and northern local contexts, where it may sometimes be tied to place-names rather than to the vegetable word. In the United States, Pease has remained an established but not especially common surname.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Victorian surname writers often discussed Pease alongside a whole cluster of lookalike names—Peace, Pace, Peasgood, and Peascod—because medieval spellings could blur them together.
From the historical record
“codd(e, O.E. codd, a bag] PEASE I like Peace, a var. of Pace, q.v. 2 meton. for a seller of Peas [v. under Peascod] John Pese.— Hund. Rolls. PEASEGOODl r „ PEASGOOD } for Peascod, q.v. PEASEY (Eng.) Dweller at the Peas-Field”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)