Family name origins & meanings
- English : topographic name for someone who lived by an enclosure of some kind, Middle English yard(e) (Old English geard; compare Garth).
- English : nickname from Middle English yard ‘rod’, ‘stick’ (Old English (Anglian) gerd), probably with reference to a rod or staff carried as a symbol of authority.
- English : from the same word as in 2, used to denote a measure of land. The surname probably denoted someone who held this quantity of land, and as it was quite a large amount (varying at different periods and in different places, but generally approximately 30 acres, a quarter of a hide), such a person would have been a reasonably prosperous farmer.