Meaning and Origin of: Dewey

Boy name origins & meanings

  • Hebrew : Beloved
  • Welsh : Treasured one

Family name origins & meanings

  • Welsh : from the personal name Dewi, Welsh form of David.
  • Anglicized form of a French Huguenot name of uncertain form and origin. Traditionally it is recorded as Douai, from a place in northern France, but it could also be from Old Norman French du we(z) ‘of the ford’, from a variant of standard French gué ‘ford’.
  • Thomas Duee of Sandwich, Kent, England, emigrated to Dorchester, MA, in 1634, where his name is recorded as Dewey. Another line is apparently descended from a Huguenot family called Douai, who settled in Kent, England, in the latter half of the 16th century. The connection, if any, between the two Kentish families is not clear.