Family name origins & meanings
- English : habitational name from any of various places so named. One in Lancashire is named from the Old English female personal name Æ{dh}elsige (composed of the elements a{dh}el ‘noble’ + sige ‘victory’) + Old English tūn ‘enclosure’, ‘settlement’; one in Nottinghamshire originally had as its first element the genitive case of the Old Norse byname Eilífr meaning ‘everlasting’; one in Wiltshire was so named from Elias Giffard, holder of the manor in the 12th century.