Lewis Family History

English: from the Middle English, Old French personal name Lewis, Leweis, Lowis, from ancient Germanic (originally West Frankish) Hludwig (itself from hlōd- ‘fame, famous’ + wīg- ‘battle’). This was Latinized as Ludovicus and Chlodovisus, which were gallicized as Clovis or Clouis, French Louis. The name may also appear as Lawis, Laweys, Lawes, by unrounding of the vowel of Lowis on the analogy of the variation between Low and Law as pet forms of Middle English Lourence alias Laurence. This surname is also very common among African Americans. See Laws 2 and compare Lawrence .

Welsh: adopted for the Welsh personal name Llywelyn (see Llewellyn ).

Irish: shortened Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Lughaidh ‘son of Lughaidh’. This is one of the most common Old Irish personal names. It is derived from Lugh ‘brightness’, which was the name of a Celtic god.

Americanized form of French Louis .

Americanized form of various like-sounding Jewish surnames.

Chinese: variant Romanization of the surnames 廖 (see Liao ), 羅 (see Luo 1), 劉 (see Liu 1).

History: This name was brought independently to New England by many bearers from the 17th century onward. William Lewis was one of the founders of Hartford, CT, in 1635 (coming from Cambridge, MA with Thomas Hooker). The explorer Meriwether Lewis (1774–1809) was a native of Albemarle County, VA, where he was a neighbor of the Jeffersons, Randolphs, and other prominent families. His family also had plantations on the Broad River in Oglethorpe County, GA. The Lewis family in VA date back to Robert Lewis, a native of Brecon, Wales, who settled in what is now Gloucester County, VA c. 1635. Another early bearer of this very common British surname is Francis Lewis, a New York merchant and signer of the Declaration of Independence, who was born in 1713 in Llandaff, Glamorganshire, Wales. — This surname (see 4 above) is listed along with its original form Louis in the (US) National Huguenot Society's register of qualified Huguenot ancestors.