Wray Family History

English (northern):

from Middle English wra (Old Norse vrá) ‘nook, corner of land’, a topographic name for someone who lived at or by a nook, corner of land, or isolated place, or a habitational name from a place so named, such as Wray in Tunstall (Lancashire), Wrea in Kirkham (Lancashire), and High and Low Wreah in Hensingham (Cumberland). The name was taken to Ulster by a Yorkshire family in the reign of Elizabeth I, and was used interchangeably in the counties of Derry and Donegal with Raw, Ray, Rea, and occasionally McRae .

common post-medieval spelling of Ray , Rae , or Ree .

in Devon, a variant of Wrey, either a habitational name from Wray Barton (Devon), which takes its name from the river Wray, which probably derives from Old English wearg ‘felon’ + ēa ‘water’, perhaps referring to a stream where felons were executed by drowning. Alternatively, perhaps a nickname meaning ‘the twisted, crooked one’, from Middle English wry(e) ‘awry’, a derivative of Old English wrīgian ‘to turn’.