Family name origins & meanings
- Scottish : nickname for a savage or unpredictable individual, from Middle English, Old French rammage ‘wild’ (applied to a bird of prey), Late Latin ramaticus, from ramus ‘branch’. Compare Savage.
- French : from a derivative of Old French ramu ‘branch’, with the sense ‘forest’, hence a topographic name for someone who lived by a forest. The term ramage also had a legal sense, denoting the right to cut branches within a manorial forest, and in some cases the surname may have arisen from a nickname for someone who had this feudal right.