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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : nickname from Middle English derth ‘famine’ (of uncertain application) or de(e)th ‘death’, Old English dēa{dh}. The latter name would have been acquired by someone who had played the part of the personified figure of Death in a pageant or play, or else one who was habitually gloomy or sickly, and the insertion of the letter -r- may have been a deliberate attempt to dissociate the name from death.

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