Richey
A surname usually meaning “little Rich” or “son of Rich,” built from the short form Rich with a diminutive ending.
The #1,977 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 16,875 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Richey is generally explained as a diminutive or pet-form surname from Rich, itself a short form of Richard. The ending is often taken as an English diminutive in -ey/-ie, so the name would originally have meant something like “little Rich” or a familiar descendant of Rich. Some older writers also compared related forms such as Richie and Richey to French diminutive patterns, but the English nickname explanation is the clearest.
History
The name appears in older English and border-area nickname forms such as Richie and Richey, and it remained in use in Scotland and later in the United States. Nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century surname writers treated it as a variant of Richie/Rich, though spelling forms varied widely. The modern U.S. spelling Richey is well established, especially in America, where these forms survived after becoming less common in England.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
One 1912 surname dictionary noted that Richey was still living in the United States even when it was becoming rare in England.
From the historical record
“RICHEY \= Rich (q.v.) + the E. dim. suff. RICHIE ]-ey,-ie. RICHIN = Rich (q.v.) + the Fr. dim. sufl.-i» [Lat. -in-us\ Exceptionally, Richin has another origin, for Foulques, Count of Anjou, was sur- named Richin or Rechin [O.Fr. rechin, rude, rough ; f. reche, M.H.Ger. resche, roesche, O.H.Ger. r6sc{i, sharp…”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)