Family name origins & meanings
- Scottish and English : metonymic occupational name for a swordsman or armorer, from Middle English swerd, sword ‘sword’.
- Irish : reduced Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Suaird, Ó Suairt ‘descendant of Suart’, a personal name derived from Old Norse Sigvarðr ‘victory keeper’, a cognate of Old English Sigeweard. Compare Seward 1.