Family name origins & meanings
- English and Scottish : of uncertain origin. According to Reaney this is an occupational name for a shepherd, from Middle English wether ‘wether’, ‘ram’ + herd ‘herdsman’. His evidence for this interpretation of the final syllable is alternation in the late 15th century between Weydurherd and Wedirhed. Black speculates that the name may be a topographic name from a hill in Berwickshire.