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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : habitational name from any of various places, for example in Derbyshire, Gloucestershire, Northumberland, Staffordshire, and Surrey, so named from Old English hors ‘horse’ + lēah ‘wood’, ‘clearing’. The reference is probably to a place where horses were put out to pasture. The surname is widespread in north-central England.

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