Origin and popularity of the name OSWALD

Origin

Oswald : 1: Scottish (Fife and Lanarkshire) northern English German and French (mainly Alsace and Lorraine): from an Old English personal name composed of the elements ōs ‘god’ + weald ‘power’. In the Middle English period this fell together with the less common Old Norse cognate Ásvaldr. The name was introduced to Germany from England as a result of the fame of Saint Oswald a 7th-century king of Northumbria whose deeds were reported by Celtic missionaries to southern Germany. The name was also borne by a 10th-century English saint of Danish parentage who was important as a monastic reformer. Veneration of Saint Oswald the king spread from the German lands to the neighbouring Slavic lands as well. The surname in the (German) spelling Oswald is thus also found especially in Czechia and Slovakia while in North America it also absorbed various Slavic forms (see 3 below).2: Irish (Down): adopted as an English equivalent of Gaelic Ó hEodhusa (see Hussey 1).3: Americanized form of Slovenian Slovak and Czech Osvald Slovenian and Slovak Ožvald or Ozvald and probably also of Slovenian Ožbolt: from vernacular forms of the German personal name Oswald of Old English origin (see 1 above).

Oselton : perhaps from Woolsington (Northumb) recorded as Wolsyngton in 1360 and denoting the farm or estate (Old English tūn) belonging to a man named with the Old English personal name Wulfsige ‘wolf’ + ‘victory’. Loss of initial W- and metathesis of [ls] to [sl] would produce Uslington and Oslington reduced to Osleton. The surname spellings Oswelton and Ozwelton would reflect folk etymological interpretation of Osle- as a vulgar pronunciation of the personal name Oswald. But there is no evidence for these changes in recorded spellings of the place-name whose local pronunciation is [wisiŋtɔn]; nor has any evidence been found of a medieval surname derived from it.

More

Subject to the Terms and Conditions of Ancestry

Surname frequency

Geographic distribution of the 82,542 individuals with the name OSWALD on Geneanet.

This last name in the family trees

See below the Geneanet members' family trees which contain the last name OSWALD