HONEYWOOD
The surname Honeywood is of English origin. It derives from the Old English words hunig, meaning honey, and wudu, meaning wood. Consequently the appellation is a locational surname, indicating that the earliest bearers once lived near or within a honey-producing woodland.
In historical records the name appears in several variants, including Honeywood, Honywood, Honwood and Honworth. The spelling variations suggest an origin tied to a place whose name bears similarity to the modern form of the surname. Yet no extant village or hamlet can be confidently identified as the original source. Canon Charles Bardsley, the eminent Victorian etymologist, noted in 1880 that he was unable to locate such a site, a problem that has persisted for well over a century.
It therefore appears that Honeywood is one of many surnames that stem from “lost” villages, a category of which includes over three thousand surnames in the British Isles. In these instances the name originally functioned as a ‘from’ name, signalling that an individual had left their former home to settle elsewhere. The absence of a definitive place name encircles Honeywood in an intriguing mystery.
Various localities in England possess the prefix Honey-, such as Honeybourne in Gloucestershire and Honeychurch in Devon. These place names implicitly describe areas where honey was gathered or produced, and they may offer contextual clues as to the nature of the landscape associated with the surname.
Church registers in London provide some concrete examples of the name’s use throughout history. The registers record that on 9 September 1579, a certain Robert Honywood was acknowledged at the church of St Bathobel the Great, and on 21 September 1708, Rebecca Honeywood was recorded at St Katherines by the Tower. These entries affirm that bearers of the surname were active within London’s ecclesiastical communities during the early modern period.
Typical given names associated with the Honeywood surname
Male
- Andrew
- Graham
- Ian
- John
- Keith
- Mark
- Michael
- Paul
- Peter
- Robert
- Simon
- Stephen
- Tim
Female
- Elizabeth
- Helen
- Jennifer
- Joanne
- Karen
- Kathleen
- Louise
- Lucy
- Nicola
- Sarah
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 Honeywood in...
Braille
⠓⠕⠝⠑⠽⠺⠕⠕⠙
Morse
....----..-.--.---------..
Semaphore
There are approximately 383 people named Honeywood in the UK. That makes it one of Britain's least common surnames. Only around six in a million people in Britain are named Honeywood.
Famous people named Honeywood
- Brian Honeywood - Football player
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.