Girl name origins & meanings
- English : From the white island
Family name origins & meanings
- English : habitational name from a place in Herefordshire, the etymology of which is uncertain. The second element is Old English ēg ‘island’, ‘piece of higher ground in a low-lying area’; the first appears to be hwītan, which is either the genitive singular of an Old English byname Hwīta (meaning ‘white’), or the weak dative case (originally used after a preposition and article) of the adjective hwīt ‘white’.
- John Whitney came from London, England, to Watertown, MA, in 1635, and had numerous prominent descendents.
