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Position:Home>Genealogy> Origin of last name "Toy"?


Question:Is it of Jewish origin?


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Is it of Jewish origin?

This is what www.ancestry.com has to say about the name,
Toy Name Meaning and History
English: nickname for a light-hearted or frivolous person, from Middle English toy ‘play’, ‘sport’ (of uncertain origin), or from an occasional medieval personal name, Toye.
French: metonymic occupational name for a sheath maker, from Old French toie ‘sheath’ (Latin theca).

hope this helps.

Well...Jewish isn't an ethnicity/origin, first of all.
But here's what I found:
"This very unusual and interesting name is of Olde English origins, and one of the very first of all surnames to be recorded anywhere in the world.
and
"The surname TOY has a number of possible origins. According to P.H. REANEY in "The Oxford Dictionary of English Surnames" the name may have originally derived from a nickname, while Dr BASIL COTTLE in "The Penguin Dictionary of Surnames" and LESLIE DUNKLING in "The Collins Dictionary of Surnames" suggest that it was used for someone who made "toys" - a "toy" being a northern English name for a close-fitting cap. The name could also be an Anglicization of the Irish Gaelic "taidgh" meaning poet or philosopher, and it could also be a corruption of the French Huguenot surname TOYE."