Ferry Family History

Irish: shortened Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Fearadhaigh ‘descendant of Fearadhach’ a personal name from an adjective derived from fear ‘man’. This surname is also Anglicized Farry.

English: metonymic occupational name for a ferryman or a topographic name for someone who lived by a ferry crossing on a river or from a place so named such as Ferrybridge Yorkshire. From Middle English feri(e) ‘ferry’ (Old Norse ferja cognate with Old English ferian ‘to carry’).

English: habitational name from Ferryhill Durham recorded as Ferie c. 1125 and Ferye on the Hill in 1316. The place is named with Old English fergen ‘wooded hill’ with the later addition of Middle English hil ‘hill’.