Family name origins & meanings
- Of Welsh origin : from an Anglicized form of the personal name Gwrgenau, composed of the elements gwr ‘man’, ‘warrior’ + cenau ‘whelp’, ‘young dog’, a term used in Welsh heroic poetry for a soldier ferocious in attack.
- The name is recorded as early as 1617 in Jamestown VA, when Edward Gurgany from England patented a land grant at Curles Neck VA.