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Updated June 9, 2019

Boy name origins & meanings

  • Old English : From the friend's hill

Family name origins & meanings

  • Scottish and northern English : habitational name from any of various place so called, for example Wingate in County Durham or Wingates in Northumberland, named in Old English as wind-geat ‘wind gate’, i.e. a place where the wind howls through a narrow pass or gap.
  • The earliest recorded Wingate in America is Charles Wyngate (born 1613) who came to VA in 1635. John Wingate (b. 1636) came to Dover, NH, about 1658. Family historians also report two brothers (Robert and Andrew) and a third brother whose name is unknown, coming from Scotland to Schenectady, NY, at about the time of the American Revolution.

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