Family name origins & meanings
- English and Scottish : habitational name from a place in Roxburghshire named Eckford.
- The surname Eckford appears in North America in the 18th and 19th centuries, most notably with a shipbuilder from Irvine, Scotland, named Henry Eckford (1775–1832). At age 16 he emigrated to Quebec, then to New York City (1796), where he ran shipyards and built steamboats, including the Robert Fulton.