<<Well, as long as we're on the subject of surname origins, can anyone enlighten me as to the likely origins of Woodliffe/Woodleefe (nowadays in the U.S. mostly spelled 'Woodlief' or 'Woodliff') ? Is this a 'place name'? While mine seem to have been in Bucks (at least briefly from rougly mid 1500s to early 1600s), it looks as though an awful lot of them congregate around Lincs.....from whence mine may well have come.>> It beats me, Sandy. I've looked in various of the specialist surname books in our library and can't find it in any of them. I've looked in some place-name books, including the English Place-names Survey's 'Place-names of Oxfordshire' and the still-incomplete volumes of 'Place-names of Lincolnshire', and can't find any place with a name like Woodliff. Of course that doesn't mean the surname didn't come from a place-name which isn't in those books, but it just doesn't look like a place-name. Liff or Lief or anything similar isn't a common place-name element, especially not as the second or generic element. In fact I can't think of any other place-name ending with it, and I can't find anything like it in any book on place-name elements. I suppose Woodlief could possibly be a corruption of Woodleigh, but that doesn't seem very likely, as there are hundreds, if not thousands, of known place-names whose generic element is -leigh, ley etc yet none of them has corrupted to -lief or -liff. So it must fall into one of the other categories of surnames. A nickname or occupational surname seems most likely, though I don't know what it would mean, as I don't know of any word similar to liff or lief which could be combined with wood to make either a nickname or occupation. Perhaps it is just leaf - ie thing which falls off trees - but 'wood-leaf' seems rather redundant. Or it might conceivably be a surname originating in a personal name - some kind of Anglo-Saxon name like Wud-leaf, maybe? Or even Odd-leaf, since in surnames and place-names Wood/Wold and Od/Old are sometimes interchangeable (for instance Odell originated as Wood-hill or Woad-hill). Unfortunately I don't know enough about Anglo-Saxon personal names to say. Matt

On Tuesday, April 26, 2005, at 04:32 AM, Tompkins, M.L. wrote: > Or it might conceivably be a surname originating in a personal name - > some kind of Anglo-Saxon name like Wud-leaf, maybe? Or even Odd-leaf, > since in surnames and place-names Wood/Wold and Od/Old are sometimes > interchangeable (for instance Odell originated as Wood-hill or > Woad-hill). Unfortunately I don't know enough about Anglo-Saxon > personal names to say. > Me either. But Ancestry.com lists: "English (Lincolnshire): from the Old English personal name Wuduleof." source: Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press. I don't know if that's accurate, but I think it makes more sense than the place-name explanations I've seen. -Sandy >

Hi Sandy Lief is derived from the Old English 'leof' which comes from lufu, which means love, so I presume it means a lover of Wood. Regards John -----Original Message----- From: Tompkins, M.L. [mailto:mllt1@leicester.ac.uk] Sent: 26 April 2005 10:32 To: BUCKS-L@rootsweb.com Subject: RE: [BKM] origins of Woodliffe/ Woodlief ? <<Well, as long as we're on the subject of surname origins, can anyone enlighten me as to the likely origins of Woodliffe/Woodleefe (nowadays in the U.S. mostly spelled 'Woodlief' or 'Woodliff') ? Is this a 'place name'? While mine seem to have been in Bucks (at least briefly from rougly mid 1500s to early 1600s), it looks as though an awful lot of them congregate around Lincs.....from whence mine may well have come.>> It beats me, Sandy. I've looked in various of the specialist surname books in our library and can't find it in any of them. I've looked in some place-name books, including the English Place-names Survey's 'Place-names of Oxfordshire' and the still-incomplete volumes of 'Place-names of Lincolnshire', and can't find any place with a name like Woodliff. Of course that doesn't mean the surname didn't come from a place-name which isn't in those books, but it just doesn't look like a place-name. Liff or Lief or anything similar isn't a common place-name element, especially not as the second or generic element. In fact I can't think of any other place-name ending with it, and I can't find anything like it in any book on place-name elements. I suppose Woodlief could possibly be a corruption of Woodleigh, but that doesn't seem very likely, as there are hundreds, if not thousands, of known place-names whose generic element is -leigh, ley etc yet none of them has corrupted to -lief or -liff. So it must fall into one of the other categories of surnames. A nickname or occupational surname seems most likely, though I don't know what it would mean, as I don't know of any word similar to liff or lief which could be combined with wood to make either a nickname or occupation. Perhaps it is just leaf - ie thing which falls off trees - but 'wood-leaf' seems rather redundant. Or it might conceivably be a surname originating in a personal name - some kind of Anglo-Saxon name like Wud-leaf, maybe? Or even Odd-leaf, since in surnames and place-names Wood/Wold and Od/Old are sometimes interchangeable (for instance Odell originated as Wood-hill or Woad-hill). Unfortunately I don't know enough about Anglo-Saxon personal names to say. Matt ==== BUCKS Mailing List ==== To search the BUCKS list message archives, go to: http://listsearches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl?list=BUCKS -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 266.10.2 - Release Date: 21/04/2005 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 266.10.2 - Release Date: 21/04/2005