Devitt Family History

Irish: shortened form of McDevitt ‘son of David’. English: of uncertain origin. The Irish name in 1 above is unlikely to have appeared in 16th-century Warwickshire and the early form Dyvet(t) does not look like a local English (as distinct from an Irish) pronunciation of David.

Middle English defet (Old French desfait) ‘disfigured changed in appearance’ is a formal possibility but it is nowhere recorded as a Middle English surname. A habitational name from Defford (Worcestershire) is another possibility with -ford shortened to -fitt and voicing of medial /f/ but no evidence has been found to substantiate it.