Ffrench

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A family surname of Anglo-Irish origin, carried by several notable families in Ireland and beyond
2. An Anglo-Irish surname borne by a number of families, typically traced to Norman settlers in Ireland
3. The name of an Anglo-Irish family line, used as a surname by people with roots in Ireland

Etymology: The surname "ffrench" looks like a misspelling, but it is a deliberate survival of an old English spelling habit. In blackletter typefaces, the capital F was drawn in a way that resembled two lowercase fs placed side by side, so scribes and printers often wrote the initial sound of "French" as "ff". Over time, readers came to treat that doubled letter as a real feature of the name rather than a quirk of the letterforms. The same pattern appears in other English surnames, such as "fforde" and "ffoulkes", which were written with the doubled initial long after the original calligraphic reason had faded. Families who kept the spelling preserved a visual habit from manuscript and early print culture. The word still names French people or things in its ordinary sense, while the "ff" form survives mainly in names.