Family name origins & meanings
- Irish : reduced Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Fearadhaigh ‘descendant of Fearadhach’, a personal name of uncertain origin, probably an adjective derivative of fear ‘man’.
- English : metonymic occupational name for a ferryman, or a topographic name for someone who lived by a ferry crossing on a river. Middle English feri ‘ferry’ is from Old Norse ferja ‘ferry’, ultimately cognate with the Old English verb ferian ‘to carry’.