Family name origins & meanings
- Irish (especially County Waterford) : Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó hÉamhthaigh ‘descendant of Éamhthach’, an adjective meaning ‘swift’.
- English : habitational name from Heapey in Lancashire, named in Old English as ‘(rose)hip hedge or enclosure’, hēope ‘hip’ + hege ‘hedge’ or gehæg ‘enclosure’.