Family name origins & meanings
- English (Kent) : from Middle English shefe ‘sheaf’, ‘bundle’ (Old English scēaf), hence possibly a metonymic occupational name for a harvest worker, or for someone who paid or collected tithes, from the same term in the sense ‘tenth’ (or other proportion of produce paid as a tithe).
- Jacob Sheafe (d. 1658) was one of the founds of Boston MA. He is buried in the King’s Chapel Burying Ground there.