Whitehouse
A habitational surname meaning someone who lived by or at a white house.
The #5,555 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 49,336 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Whitehouse is an English surname formed from Middle English white + house, from Old English hwit + hus, literally “white house.” In medieval records it could describe someone living at or near a notable pale-colored house, and in some cases it may have been used for people from places called Whitehouse. The name fits the common English pattern of surnames built from a house or dwelling feature.
History
The surname is recorded in England by the early 14th century, for example in Somerset in 1327. Later writers also noted related place-names and occasional confusion with forms like Whitehorse or Whitehose, which have sometimes merged into Whitehouse. It remains a fairly straightforward local surname in modern usage.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
A very similar-looking surname, Whitehorse, was sometimes treated as a corruption of Whitehouse in older surname studies.
From the historical record
“House [O.K. hwit + cern] WHITEHOUSE (Eng.) Dweller at the White House [O.E. hwit + hits] Stephen atte Whitehous.— Soms. Subsidy-Roll, A.D. 1327. WHITEHURST (Eng.) Dweller at the White Wood [O.E. hwit -h hyrst, a wood] Cp. Blackhurst.”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)