Todd


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The Scots and Middle English tod of northern origin means "fox."  The word cropped up in the 14th century writings of Wycliffe.  This was Beatix Potter's description in The Tale of Mr. Tod:

"Nobody could call Mr. Tod "nice."  The rabbits could not bear him; they could smell him half a mile off.  He was of a wandering habit and he had foxey whiskers; they never knew where he would be next."

As a surname, Todd would be a nickname for someone resembling a fox, either by his slyness or cunning or by his red hair, or he could be a fox hunter.  Todhunter means fox hunter.

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England and Scotland.  Todd only really appears in England as a surname in the north (instead of the Fox surname to be found in the midlands and the south).  The earliest surname reference appears to have been a Richard Todd in the 1231 Northumberland rolls.   John Todde was High Sheriff of York in 1390 and Sir William Todd held the same office in 1487.  A Todd family from Pontefract in Yorkshire included Christopher and Grace Todd who were among the early New England settlers, in 1638, in New Haven colony.    

In Scotland, Todd was at first a Border name.  However, hard times in the 17th century saw an out-migration, to Glasgow in Lanarkshire and across the Irish Sea to Ulster (where many were granted land tenancies).  A number of these Scots-Irish were later immigrants to America.

America.  A Todd family was one of the first to establish a farmstead, later called Todd's Inheritance, along Chesapeake Bay.  The following is the historical marker at the site:

"Thomas Todd settled here from Gloucester County, Virginia in 1664.  The homestead has remained in the Todd famly for more than three centuries.  The 17th century brick house was burned by British soldiers in 1814 as they withdrew from an unsuccessful assault on Baltimore.  The house was rebuilt on the site in 1816 and remodelled in 1867."

There is a telescope surviving from these times which was used, it was believed, to spy on British vessel movements during the War of 1812.

Another early arrival was Joseph Todd.  He came to Pennsylvania where he died in 1699.  His descendants moved onto North Carolina and then in 1797 undertook the trek to Kentucky, settling in Madison County.

Mary Todd's ancestry has been traced back to the Scots-Irish Robert Todd and his brother Andrew who came to Pennsylvania in 1737.  Their descendants also moved onto Kentucky where John Todd was killed in one of the last battles of the Revolutionary War (Todd County in Kentucky is named after him).  Mary Todd, who grew up in Lexington, married Abraham Lincoln in Illinois in 1842.  Mary's cousin John was a Union general during the Civil War and was later a delegate representative for the Dakota territory.

Australia and New Zealand.  Todds started to move to Australia and New Zealand as the 19th century proceeded. Thomas and Elizabeth Todd, for instance, set sail for South Australia in the 1850's.  Alexander and Jane Todd arrived in New Zealand in 1849 and settled in Dunedin.  Perhaps the most successful of these immigrants was Charles Todd who arrived in 1885.  He started off with a rural goods store in Otago, got into automobiles and petrol stations, and built up the Todd Corporation to the large energy company it is today.          
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If you would like to read more, click on the miscellany page for further stories and accounts:


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Sir William Todd was High Sheriff of York in 1487 and later Lord Mayor.
Mary Todd Lincoln was the wife of Abraham Lincoln.
Sweeney Todd was the fictional Victorian serial killer, recreated in a Broadway musical and film.
Alexander Todd from Glasgow was awarded the Nobel prize for chemistry in 1957.
Mark Todd is the New Zealand horseman voted "Rider of the 20th Century" by the International Equestrian Association.

Select Todds Today
  • 31,000 in the UK (most numerous in Northumberland)
  • 24,000 in America (most numerous in Texas)
  • 16,000 elsewhere (most numerous in Canada)



Select Index of Names

Adams Chisholm Harding McCarthy Rooney
Armstrong
Clinton
Harris McDonald Sawyer
Baldwin Corbett Hayward Meredith Shelley
Bannister Crowther Henderson Mitchell Sheraton        
Bartlett Driscoll  Hepburn Moore Spencer
Bennett Ellis Higgins Nash Sykes
Booth Fleming          
Hilton Nightingale      
Todd  
Bowles Foster Hopkins          
Palmer Tucker
Brett Fox Hudson Pascoe Vaughan
Burden/Borden Fry
Jackson Pertwee Wade
Carter Fuller Jefferson Pratt Wallace
Cassidy Gallagher   Jenner
Probyn Washington
Cavendish Gould Maloney Reynolds Webster
Chapman Grant Marriott Richardson Witherspoon

The Origin/Spread of Surnames