Wood
A very common English surname meaning someone who lived by, or near, a wood or forest.
The #84 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 1,231 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Wood is an English habitational surname from Old English words for a wood or forest, especially wudu. In medieval records it appears in forms such as de la Wode and atte Wode, both of which point to a person living by a wood. In some older scholarship, the same spelling was also connected with Old English wōd, meaning “frenzied” or “wild,” but that is a separate word and not the usual surname origin.
History
This is one of the most widespread English surnames because almost any sizeable wood could generate it independently as a place-based byname. Early forms such as Atte-Wode later simplified to Wood and also produced variants like Woods, Attwood, and Bywood. The name is common in medieval English records and remains frequent today in England, the United States, and other English-speaking countries.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Lower noted that many medieval families took the name from a nearby wood, which helps explain why Wood became so unusually common.
From the historical record
“suff. -en] WOOD (Eng.) I Dweller at a Wood [M.E. wodc, O.E. wudit] Richard de la Wode.—Hund. Rolls. John atte Wode.— Ca/. Jng. P.M. 2 Frenzied, Wild [E. Mod. E. wood(e, M.E. wood, wod(e, O.E. w6d] Thanne [then] wolde he speke, and crie as he were wood. — Chaucer, Cant. Tales, A 636. . . . what Rage, what Furyes…”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)