Lead Family History
Lead Surname Meaning
Apparently from Lead (WR Yorks) named from Old English lǣd ‘artificial watercourse drain’, but although the place is recorded in Domesday Book, there is no village there. Alternatively, it may be a reduced form of Leeds (from the WR Yorks place-name), for someone who lived by a cliff or hill slope.
From Middle English lede, a variant of lith lid (Old English hlið hlid), or perhaps from a variant pronunciation of Lydd (Kent), which is an Old English dative plural Hlidum ‘(at the) hill slopes’. See Lyth and Lyde (2).
Perhaps from a reduced form of Leeds (from the place-name in Kent). From the Middle English personal name Lede, perhaps a survival of Old Scandinavian Ljótr or *Ljóti (from a nickname meaning ‘ugly’), attested in 958 and 959 as Leot and Leod dux.
The E Anglian name may alternatively belong with (1).
Source: The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland, 2016