Waugh
A surname most often explained as a Scottish Border name meaning “dweller by a wall.”
The #3,171 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 27,114 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The best-supported explanation links Waugh to the Old English word for “wall,” found in Scots forms such as waugh or wauch. In this sense, the name would originally have described someone who lived by a wall or earthwork, and Harrison suggests the Border context may point specifically to Hadrian’s Wall. Some older writers also proposed other Scottish or Gaelic explanations, but the wall derivation is the clearest and most widely repeated.
History
The surname is recorded in medieval England, including a Yorkshire Poll Tax entry for Willelmus Wahh in 1379. It became especially associated with the Anglo-Scottish Border, where place and landscape surnames were common. Later spellings and pronunciations vary, and some sources note forms like Wauchope, Wawn, or local pronunciations that blurred the final consonant.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
One 19th-century source notes that the wall reference may be to Hadrian’s Wall rather than just any wall.
From the historical record
“Brokeshy; Ray's North-Ctry. Wds. (1691). WAUGH (N.Eng.andScot.)Dwellerat a Wall [O.E. wag, wdh; whence Scot, waugh, wauch, a wall] Willelmus Wahh.— Yorks Poll-Tax, A.D. 1379. As this is more specifically a Border name, the Wall in question is doubtless Hadrian's. WAVERLEY (Eng.) Bel. to Waverley (Surrey),”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)