The litchfield Surname
litchfield Name Meaning and History
- habitational name from Lichfield in Staffordshire. The first element preserves a British name recorded as Letocetum during the Romano-British period. This means ‘gray wood’, from words which are the ancestors of Welsh llwyd ‘gray’ and coed ‘wood’. By the Old English period this had been reduced to Licced, and the element feld ‘pasture’, ‘open country’ was added to describe a patch of cleared land within the ancient wood.
- habitational name from Litchfield in Hampshire, recorded in Domesday Book as Liveselle. This is probably from an Old English hlif ‘shelter’ + Old English scylf ‘shelf’, ‘ledge’. The subsequent transformation of the place name may be the result of folk etymological association with Old English hlið, hlid ‘slope’ + feld ‘open country’.
Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
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