FULLWOOD
Fullwood is a surname of English origin that belongs to the class of locational names. It is identified with places called Fullwood in the counties of Lancashire, Yorkshire and Derbyshire, and is thought to have arisen when families began to be distinguished by the places where they lived.
Derivationally the name comes from the Old English words full, which can mean either ‘full’ or ‘dirty, muddy’, and wudu, meaning ‘wood’. The composite indicates a settlement near or within a wood that was either dense or considered dirty, possibly situated at the edge of a marsh or standing water. The earliest recorded version of the place name in the Lancashire charter rolls is Fulewude (1228) and it is later documented as Fuluuode (1252). In Yorkshire the first surviving use is found in the 1379 Poll Tax rolls, where a man named Ricardus de Folewode and another titled Hugo de Fulwode appear. These documents establish the surname as being in use at least by the late fourteenth century.
Historical records also contain notable bearers of the name. A William Fullwood of London, active between 1498 and 1562, is recorded as a writer of some renown in his era. During the English Civil War a Christopher Fulwood from Derbyshire is known to have raised troops for King Charles I and was mortally wounded near the city of Derby in 1643. Such references help to trace the name’s presence through the early modern period.
In contemporary distribution the surname remains chiefly found within the United Kingdom, but it has also spread to countries that have historically received significant migration from Britain, including the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. This pattern of dispersion follows the wider trends of British emigration during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Numerous spelling variants have emerged over time, reflecting local dialect and the lack of a fixed orthography before standardisation. Common variations include Fulwood, Fullward, Fowood, Fodol, and Phullwood, among others. Although these are recognisable forms of the same root, the history of each spelling may correspond to a distinct family line and should therefore be investigated on a case by case basis.
The surname Fullwood is typical of the locational naming practice that became widespread in England from the Middle Ages onward. Such names served to identify individuals by their place of residence or by a prominent geographical feature, so that the name of a family could indicate their ancestral home or the type of landscape that surrounded it.
Typical given names associated with the Fullwood surname
Male
- Andrew
- Anthony
- Christopher
- David
- Ian
- James
- John
- Lee
- Mark
- Michael
- Peter
- Raymond
- Terrence
- Vincent
Female
- Debbie
- Deborah
- Emma
- Joan
- Julie
- June
- Laura
- Lisa
- Louise
- Margaret
- Mary
- Patricia
- Rachael
- Sarah
- Susan
Similar and related surnames
Related and similar names are generated algorithmically based on the spelling, and may not necessarily share an etymology.
How to communicate the surname Fullwood in...
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There are approximately 1,371 people named Fullwood in the UK. That makes it roughly the 5,757th most common surname in Britain. Around 21 in a million people in Britain are named Fullwood.
Surname type: Location or geographical feature
Origin: English
Region of origin: British Isles
Country of origin: England
Religion of origin: Christian
Language of origin: English
Famous people named Fullwood
- James Fullwood - Football player (1911 to 1981)
- Walter Fullwood - Cricketer (1907 to 1988)
Names and descriptions courtesy of Wikipedia, and may contain errors. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of every famous person with this name.