Willughby

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A surname of English origin carried by various families and by a seventeenth-century English naturalist and ornithologist
2. An English family name borne by people across several centuries, including a noted seventeenth-century naturalist of birds and fish
3. A proper noun serving as an English surname, associated with several historical figures such as a famous seventeenth-century naturalist

Etymology: Willughby is a surname, and its most famous bearer is Francis Willughby (1635-1672), the Nottinghamshire naturalist whose ornithology and ichthyology were published posthumously by his friend John Ray. The name itself is a place-name surname. It comes from places called Willoughby, most notably the villages in Lincolnshire and Warwickshire, and the element "willoughby" is usually explained as "farmstead or settlement by the willows," from Old Norse "vīðir" (willow) and "býr" (farmstead), reflecting the Danish settlement of the Midlands. Such names were common because many English surnames were taken from the places people lived or held land. The family's name was spread across England by these local roots, so that different Willoughby lines were not necessarily related to one another. The surname was carried by several noble families, and one of them, the Willoughbys of Parham in Suffolk, later held the title Baron Willoughby de Broke. Other bearers came from unconnected branches of the name, which is why the surname appears in so many distinct histories.