names
looking for origin and meaning of the surnames Ganong and Galusha.
Replies
There is a wikipedia article for "Ganong Bros." which includes this claim -
'The Ganongs were descendants of Huguenots who fled persecution in France and emigrated to New Amsterdam in the second half of the 17th century, the family name "Ganong" is a corruption of the original French language name, "Guenon".'
Galusha looks Eastern European, but, as it is traceable back to colonial America that origin seems unlikely. I wonder if this too could be an altered form of a French surname, in this case Galocher (pronounced gal-oh-shay), which would be occupational.
'The Ganongs were descendants of Huguenots who fled persecution in France and emigrated to New Amsterdam in the second half of the 17th century, the family name "Ganong" is a corruption of the original French language name, "Guenon".'
Galusha looks Eastern European, but, as it is traceable back to colonial America that origin seems unlikely. I wonder if this too could be an altered form of a French surname, in this case Galocher (pronounced gal-oh-shay), which would be occupational.
Ganong does come from Guenon which in turn comes from the Germanic name Wano, from wan- 'hope'. The origin is definitely not guenon 'female monkey'. As for Galusha, the information given at rootsandrelatives.net/showmedia.php?mediaID=460 point to the placename Galuchet in Cher (Centre) as a probable origin.
Is it possible that Galusha could be something like Native American?