Kedge Family History

From Middle English kegge kigge ‘cheerful pleasant agreeable merry’. Compare ‘Kygge or ioly: Jocundus hillaris vernosus’ about 1440 in Promptorium Parvulorum an E Anglian English-Latin glossary. Modern East Anglian dialect has kedge ‘brisk lively’ corresponding to Danish and Norwegian kiæk Swedish käck ‘bold brisk’. Some of the following early bearers may alternatively belong under (2) or (3.

Perhaps for a pot-bellied person from an unrecorded Middle English kegge ‘belly’. Compare 19th-century dialect kedge ‘stomach’ ‘glutton’. See Keech and compare Catch and Cage. Early forms of these names are difficult to distinguish from one another.