MOORHEAD
Moorhead is a surname of Scottish origin. It is a locational name formed from the Old English moor, meaning a marshy or boggy area, and head, meaning a hill or high ground. The name therefore originally identified a person who lived near or on a moor, or on the highest point of a marshy hill.
The earliest recorded use of the surname dates to the end of the fourteenth century. An example is Sir William Muirhead, who is mentioned in the Records of Lachope of Scotland during the reign of King Robert III (1390‑1406). Earlier documents also contain the spellings de Murehede in 1401 and de Murehead in 1471.
Over time the spelling of the name has varied. Recorded forms include Morshead, Moorhead and Morehead. These variations are understood to be dialectal variations of the Scottish locational surname Muirhead, which itself is constructed from the Scots word muir (a form of moor) and heid (the head or end of a moor).
In the British Isles the surname is primarily associated with Scotland and with Ulster in Northern Ireland. The presence of the name in Northern Ireland is largely a consequence of the Plantation of Ireland carried out between 1587 and 1625 under King James I. Throughout the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries the name appears in parish registers such as the christening of Nathaniell Morehead at St. John the Evangelist in Dublin in 1655 and the marriage of Jane Moorhead to William Knight in Clones, County Monaghan in 1694.
Records from the contemporary era show that the surname remains most frequently found in Scotland and in the north of Ireland, with fewer occurrences in England and the rest of the United Kingdom. Genealogical interest in the name often centres on the early medieval documents of Glasgow and the barony of Bothwell, where the place name Muirhead originated.
Typical given names associated with the Moorhead surname
Male
- Andrew
- David
- James
- John
- Michael
- Paul
- Robert
- Stephen
- Thomas
- William
Female
- Alison
- Caroline
- Elizabeth
- Emma
- Heather
- Lisa
- Margaret
- Mary
- Patricia
- Ruth
- Sarah
- Susan
- Wendy
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 Moorhead in...
Braille
⠍⠕⠕⠗⠓⠑⠁⠙
Morse
--------.-.......--..
Semaphore
There are approximately 955 people named Moorhead in the UK. That makes it roughly the 7,630th most common surname in Britain. Around 15 in a million people in Britain are named Moorhead.
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
