Updated January 31, 2024

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Boy name origins & meanings

  • Old English : A grove

How Popular Is The Name Shaw

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : topographic name for someone who lived by a copse or thicket, Middle English s(c)hage, s(c)hawe (Old English sceaga), or a habitational name from any of the numerous minor places named with this word. The English surname was also established in Ireland in the 17th century.
  • Scottish and Irish : adopted as an English form of any of various Gaelic surnames derived from the personal name Sitheach ‘wolf’.
  • Americanized form of some like-sounding Ashkenazic Jewish surname.
  • Chinese : variant of Shao.
  • Early American merchants and revolutionary patriots were Nathaniel Shaw (b. 1735 in New London, CT) and Samuel Shaw (b. 1754 in Boston).