Routt Family History

English: from Middle English riwet, ruwet, rowet, ruffet (Old English rȳwet, rūhet or rū(we)t) ‘rough ground’. The surname may have been topographic denoting someone who lived on an area of rough ground or a habitational name for someone who lived at any of various minor places called Ruffet(t), Ruffits, or The Roughet (Gloucestershire, Surrey, Sussex), Ruet (Surrey), or at what is now Rout Farm near Bolney, Sussex.

(of Norman origin): from the Middle English personal name Ro(h)ald, Rohaut, usually an Old French form of ancient Germanic Hrothowald, Rodoald (from hrōd ‘fame, renown’ + wald ‘rule, ruler’) although it could also derive from the cognate Old Norse name Hróaldr, Róaldr.

Perhaps a shortened form of Roughead, a nickname for someone with shaggy or unkempt hair from Middle English and Older Scots rugh(e), ruf(e), ro(u)gh(e), ru(we), rowe ‘rough, hairy’ + heved, hed ‘head’.