Family name origins & meanings
- English (Yorkshire and East Midlands) : topographic name composed of Middle English whele ‘wheel’ + hous ‘house’. According to Reaney, the reference is often to a house near a dammed-up stream where a cutler ground his knives on a small water-wheel. The compound is not attested as a vocabulary word in this or any other sense before the 19th century, although the surname William de Whelehous is found in 1379.