English and Scottish: nickname for someone with fair or
prematurely white hair, from Middle English whit ‘white’ +
heved ‘head’.
Irish (Connacht): erroneous translation of
Ó Ceanndubháin ‘descendant of the little black-headed
one’ (see Canavan), as if from Gaelic ceann ‘head’ +
bán ‘white’.
Translated form of German Weisshaupt
(see Weishaupt) or Weisskopf (see Weiskopf).
Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
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