Family name origins & meanings
- French : habitational name from any of several places named Dury, in Aisne, Pas-de-Calais, and Somme.
- French and Swiss German : topographic name for someone who lived by a stream, du ry ‘from the stream’. Because ry has fallen out of use, the name has been translated as Rice, the French word for ‘rice’, riz, being a homophone.
- English : either a habitational name from Dury in Lydford, Devon, or of French origin (see 1), the surname having been taken to England by the Huguenots.