Griffith

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A Welsh-derived personal name or family surname carried by many people ; an inland town in the Riverina region of New South Wales, Australia
2. A surname of Welsh origin, also used as a first name ; a town in southern New South Wales, Australia, known for its agricultural and irrigated land
3. A family name of Welsh descent borne by many individuals ; a settlement in the Riverina district of New South Wales in eastern Australia

Etymology: Griffith is an anglicized form of the Welsh personal name Gruffudd, and the change tells you something about how English handled Welsh sounds. Gruffudd is a traditional Welsh name, and as a surname it passed into English use with its sounds reshaped to fit English spelling and pronunciation. The "ff" and the "dd" were rendered in forms English readers could manage, which is why the surname looks so different from the original on the page. The name is best known in Wales itself, where Gruffudd was borne by several medieval princes, but the anglicized spelling is what English speakers now see. Because the surname was adopted from a personal name rather than from an occupation or a place, it shows the common pattern of Welsh family names becoming fixed in English record-keeping through the spelling choices of clerks and officials.