Stafford surname meaning

Stafford is an English habitational surname taken principally from Stafford in Staffordshire, whose name combines Old English stæth, “river bank” or “shore,” with ford. Other minor places with similar names in Devon, Sussex, and elsewhere can yield the same surname for someone who left that locality. Someone who left the county town—or another Stafford—could carry the place-name as a family label wherever they settled. Staffurth appears as a related spelling in some English records. Irish Stafford can occasionally reflect other local histories, but the English ford settlement is the dominant documented route. Place is high confidence for the catalog.