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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : from Middle English delf ‘excavation’, ‘digging’ (Old English (ge)delf), hence a topographic name for someone who lived by a ditch or quarry, a metonymic occupational name for a ditch-cutter or quarryman, or alternatively a habitational name from any of various places named with this word, as for example Delf in Kent and Delph in Lancashire (now Greater Manchester) and Yorkshire.

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