Hood surname meaning
An English and Scottish surname from a hood-wearer or hood-maker, with personal-name, place-name, and Irish routes.
Confidence: Disputed. More than one origin is plausible, or sources disagree. We show the conflict rather than pick a cute answer.
The short story
Hood is an English and Scottish surname with more than one medieval route. It could describe someone who wore a hood or made and sold hoods, making occupation the catalog lead. Some records instead derive from the personal names Hod or Hudde, from places called Hood in Devon or Yorkshire, or from Irish Ó hUid. Hod, Hodd, and Hoode are useful historical spellings, but they do not sort every family into one origin. The catalog uses occupation for the documented hood-making route, with disputed confidence because a nickname, locality, and Gaelic personal-name history can produce the same modern form.
Also seen as: Hood, Hod, Hodd, Hoode
- Ancestry surname meaning for Hood citing DAFN 2022 (hood nickname, occupational, personal-name, and place routes)
- Cambridge, “The Robin Hood Names” (medieval hood-wearer, hood-maker, and place-name evidence)
- Names2020_LastNames_RaceHispanic_Top1000.xlsx (2020 Census)