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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : metonymic occupational name for a maker and seller of gloves or a nickname for a wearer of particularly fine gloves, from Middle English cuffe ‘glove’ (of uncertain origin; attested in this sense from the 14th century, with the modern meaning first in the 16th century).
  • Irish : Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Dhuibh, a variant of Mac Duibh ‘son of the black one’ (see Duff).
  • Irish : approximate translation of Gaelic Ó Doirnín (see Dornan).
  • Cornish : nickname from Cornish cuf ‘dear’, ‘kind’.

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