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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • French : habitational name, with the preposition de, for someone from either of two minor places called May, in Drôme and Rhône.
  • northern French : topographic name from ‘trough’, presumably denoting someone who lived in a trough-shaped hollow.
  • Northern French : topographic name from Old French mes, meis ‘house’, ‘dwelling’ (Latin mansus). Compare Dumas.

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