Family name origins & meanings
- English (Northumbria) : occupational name for a breeder or keeper of horses, from Old English stōd ‘stud’ or stott ‘inferior kind of horse’ + hierde ‘herdsman’, ‘keeper’. There is a difficulty in deriving this name from Old English stōd in that stud is not recorded in the sense ‘collection of horses bred by one person’ until the 17th century; before that it denoted a place where horses were kept for breeding, but that sense does not combine naturally with ‘herdsman’.
- The Stoddard family of Boston, MA, was introduced by Anthony Stoddard (1600–1686), who settled there in 1639. Solomon Stoddard (1643–1728/9) was a prominent Congregational clergyman in MA, the grandfather of Jonathan Edwards, and progenitor of many noted descendants.