Boy name origins & meanings
- Old French : Short, low
Family name origins & meanings
- English : from Old French basset, a diminutive of basse ‘low’, ‘short’, either a nickname for a short person or a status name for someone of humble origins.
- William Bassett (c. 1598–1667) came to Plymouth, MA, from Kent, England, in the 1620s; in about 1650 he moved to Duxbury and subesequently to Bridgewater. He had many prominent descendants, among them one of the earliest families on Martha’s Vineyard.