Woodring
A surname probably born from an Old English-style place-name meaning a wooded belt or strip of woods.
The #6,542 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 59,649 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The form is usually explained from Old English elements: wudu, meaning “wood,” plus a second element glossed by older writers as something like “ring” or “girdle,” giving the sense of a “wood-belt” or “wooded strip.” This is the kind of landscape-based surname that often began as a place-name or local topographic description. Because the historical spelling is old and the source is brief, the exact original form is not fully certain.
History
Woodring appears in English-language surname tradition as a rare topographic or locational-looking name, and later became established in America. The name is uncommon in Britain compared with some other wood-based surnames, suggesting it may have been carried through migration and localized spelling development. The historical source excerpt treats it as part of a cluster of old nature-based names.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The old explanation in the source glosses the name as a “wood-belt,” a vivid image of a strip of forest rather than a person’s occupation.
From the historical record
“Woodniitt. Wilde, wood ; limit, a nut. A wood-nut. Woodring. Wnde, wood; hring, a girdle. A wood-belt; a belt of woods. Woodrow. Wnde, wood; rcEwa,di row. A wood-row; a line of woods.”
— Family Names from the Irish, Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman and Scotch