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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : probably a nickname from Middle English gode ‘good’ (Old English gōd) + year, yere ‘year’, bestowed on someone who frequently used the expression, perhaps in the sense ‘(as I hope to have a) good year’ or as a New Year salutation. Alternatively, it may have been from an Americanized form of French Gauthier.
  • English translation of German Gutjahr, originally a nickname for someone born on New year’s Day.
  • The inventor of vulcanized rubber, Charles Goodyear (1800–60) was of the fourth generation descended from Stephen Goodyear (1598–1658), who succeeded Gov. Theophilus Eaton as leader of the company of London merchants that founded the New Haven colony in CT in 1638.

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