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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : occupational name for a keeper of cattle, Middle English cowherde, Old English cūhyrde, from ‘cow’ + hierde ‘herdsman’. (The surname has nothing to do with the modern English word coward, which is from Old French cuard, a pejorative term from coue ‘tail’ (Latin cauda) with reference to an animal with its tail between its legs.)

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