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1. Scottish, northern Irish, and English: topographic name for someone who lived by a wood, from Old French bois ‘wood’.
2. English: patronymic from the Middle English nickname boy ‘lad’, ‘servant’, or possibly from an Old English personal name Boia, of uncertain origin. Examples such as Aluuinus Boi (Domesday Book) and Ivo le Boye (Lincolnshire 1232) support the view that it was a byname or even an occupational name; examples such as Stephanus filius Boie (Northumbria 1202) suggest that it was in use as a personal name in the Middle English period.
3. Irish: Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Buadhaigh (see Bogue).
4. Anglicized spelling of French Bois, cognate with 1.

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This message was edited 6/16/2006, 9:50 PM