Family name origins & meanings
- English (East Anglia) : habitational name from a place in Norfolk, so named from Old English sūð ‘south’ + geat ‘gate’; the village was situated near the southern entrance to a large enclosed medieval forest. The place of this name formerly in Middlesex, now part of Greater London, may also have constributed to the surname.
- English (East Anglia) : topographic name for someone who lived near the south gate of a medieval walled city or other enclosed place.