Family name origins & meanings
- English : habitational name from a place named Applethwaite, from Old Norse apaldr ‘apple tree’ + þveit ‘meadow’. There are two or three such places in Cumbria; Applethwaite is also recorded as a surname from the 13th century in Suffolk, England, pointing to a possible lost place name there. The form Applewhite, now found predominantly in Lincolnshire, goes back to the 16th century in Suffolk.