Family name origins & meanings
- English : habitational name from any of various places so called. One in Northamptonshire is named with Old English træppe ‘(fish-)trap’ + ford ‘ford’. The places called Trafford in Cheshire have as their first element Old English trog ‘trough’, ‘valley’; while Trafford in Lancashire was originally called Stratford ‘ford on a Roman road’ (see Stratford). Nevertheless, most cases of the surname probably derive from the last of these places; a landowning family can be traced there to the 13th century.