Frequency: (1526)
(number of times this surname appears in a sample database of 88.7 million names, representing one third of the 1997 US population)
English: perhaps a deliberate alteration of Leatherhead, a habitational name from Leatherhead in Surrey, which is named from Celtic lēd ‘gray’ + rïd ‘ford’, or alternatively a habitational name from Lythwood in Shropshire, which is named from Old English hlið ‘slope’ + wudu ‘wood’.
FOREBEARS: Zachariah Leatherwood, son of John Leatherwood, was born in Prince William Co., VA, about 1735. After the revolutionary war, he settled in Spartanburg Co., SC, with his second wife, Jane Calvert, and many of his fourteen children.
See the Key to the Dictionary or consult the General Introduction for further explanation.
