English: habitational name from the port in North Yorkshire named
Whitby, from Old Norse hvítr ‘white’ or the personal name
Hvíti + býr ‘farmstead’, ‘settlement’, or from a
place of the same name in Cheshire, originally named with Old English
hwit ‘white’ (i.e. stone-built) + burh ‘manor house’,
‘fortified place’.
Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
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