Wingfield
A locational surname from English places named Wingfield, meaning a field or open land associated with a person named Wing or with a similar old English place-name element.
The #5,466 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 48,530 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Wingfield is a locational surname taken from one of several English places called Wingfield, especially in Suffolk and Derbyshire. The second element is Old English feld, meaning an open field, pasture, or unenclosed land. The first element is less certain; historical spellings suggest it may preserve an older name element such as a personal name or local landscape term rather than the modern word wing.
History
The name is especially associated with the Wingfield family of Suffolk, who were prominent in the 14th and 15th centuries and were later traced by some genealogists to an early medieval origin. Historical surname dictionaries also note Wingfield as a place-based surname in Derbyshire, Suffolk, and Kent. Because the surname comes from multiple English localities, it could arise independently in more than one family line.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
One historic form, Winnefeld, appears in the famous will of Wulfric, c. AD 1000, and has been linked by later scholars to Wingfield in Derbyshire.
From the historical record
“AA^INGET. See AVingate. WINGFIELD. "The AA^ingfields of AA'iugfield and Letheringham, botli in Suffolk, a distinguished family of the four- teenth and iifteenth centuries, are traced nearly to the Conquest, though they do not appear to have been lords of the manor or castle of AVingfijkl before the reign of Edward…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom