Defty Family History

Perhaps from Middle English dighti ‘doughty’ and therefore a variant of Doughty, especially in the form Daughty, also spelled Dafty as the following bearers seem to illustrate.

Alternatively, from an unrecorded suffixed variant of the Middle English adjective defte or dafte ‘meek, humble’ or ‘skilful’ (Old English dæfte); compare Daft.

This would also explain the variation in the surname forms below, but in the absence of any medieval evidence for this word or name, this explanation must remain doubtful.