Routt Family History
Routt Name Meaning
English:: from Middle English riwet ruwet rowet ruffet (Old English rȳwet rūhet or rū(we)t) ‘rough ground’. The surname may have been topographic denoting someone who lived on an area of rough ground or a habitational name for someone who lived at any of various minor places called Ruffet(t) Ruffits or The Roughet (Gloucestershire Surrey Sussex) Ruet (Surrey) or at what is now Rout Farm near Bolney Sussex. (of Norman origin): from the Middle English personal name Ro(h)ald Rohaut usually an Old French form of ancient Germanic Hrothowald Rodoald (from hrōd ‘fame renown’ + wald ‘rule ruler’) although it could also derive from the cognate Old Norse name Hróaldr Róaldr. perhaps a shortened form of Roughead a nickname for someone with shaggy or unkempt hair from Middle English and Older Scots rugh(e) ruf(e) ro(u)gh(e) ru(we) rowe ‘rough hairy’ + heved hed ‘head’.
Source: Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition, 2022