Ord Family History

English (Durham and Northumberland) and Scottish (Aberdeenshire): habitational name from East Ord in Tweedmouth (Northumberland). The placename derives from Old English ord ‘point, corner of land, promontory’. English: probably from an abbreviated form of a compound name such as Orderic beginning with ord ‘point, spear’. See Ort.

Scottish: habitational name from Ord, later Kirkurd (Peeblesshire), or the lands of Ord (Banffshire). This placename is Celtic and may be from Gaelic òrd ‘hammer’, used to mean ‘(rounded) hammer-shaped hill’ or, in the Peeblesshire case, possibly from the equivalent Brittonic term represented by Welsh ordd.