Surname Search
Could anyone tell me the meaning of some of these surnames? All of them are maiden- or surnames in family up until my grandparents. On another note, most of them should be French, but I could be wrong:

Sandman
Stout (stoot)
Richard (ree-shard)
Utis (yoo-tiz)
DeVille
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Replies

DeVille would be French for "of Ville".
De la ville would mean 'of the village'.
The la part probably disappeared or your ancestors are from a French village called Ville, of which there are two listed in the Michelin Touristic Road Atlas (which has pretty much everything, although smaller places are not listed in the register, though can be found on the map). In my opinion, the Delaville is more logical.

Sandman, a man who works with sand, seems to me.

Richard, a patronymic surname, thus named after the firstname of the father of the ancestor. In English Richards is the most common i believe, but in France they don't put the letter 's' or anything similar behind a firstname. The French patronymic surnames are in most cases exactly the same as the firstnames, e.g. Benoît, Richard, Laurent, Nicolas, etc.

Stout, when English it has the same meaning as the English word stout , one site said it particularly meant 'a tall person', but could mean 'brave' as well. The Dutch surname 'stout' means 'proud' (old meaning of stout ), and according to my etymological dictionary of the Dutch language it literally used to mean 'straight up', which you are when you are proud (you walk with a straight back when you're proud). In both cases the surname refers to a character treat of the ancestor.

Utis I can't find anything about because of those irritating sites about Latin and Lithuanian word and name endings.
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