Upshaw
An English surname that likely comes from a place-name built from an upland “shaw,” or small wood.
The #4,778 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 41,717 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Upshaw is generally taken to be a locational surname from an English place-name. The second element is the Old English word \u201cscaga\u201d or later \u201cshaw,\u201d meaning a small wood or thicket. The first element is likely Old English \u201cup\u201d or a related word for an upper or higher place, so the name would originally have meant something like \u201cthe upper wood\u201d or \u201cthe wood on higher ground.\u201d
History
The supplied historical excerpt only shows Upshaw as a surname in a 17th-century marriage record, so it does not add much to the etymology itself. The name is English in origin and later appears in records outside England, including in the Anglophone world more broadly. In modern use it is relatively uncommon, with a notable concentration in the United States.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The surname fits a very common English naming pattern: a direction or topographic word plus "shaw," one of the old landscape terms that produced many surnames and place-names.
From the historical record
“i68a-3. Thomas Wenham and BUs. Upshaw: Marriage Alleg. (CanterbnryX p. 110. 1 7SS. Married — Francis Wenham, of Nevis, West Indies, and Anne Williams : St Geo. Han. Sq. 11. 14.”
— A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames (alternate scan)