Smurthwaite Family History

English (Durham and Yorkshire):: habitational name from any of several places called with Old Norse smjǫr ‘butter’ + thveit ‘clearing’ for example Smorthwaite (Sedbergh Yorkshire) and a lost place called Smerthwayt in Guiseley (Yorkshire).

Habitational name from either of two places in Cumbria named Smaithwaite; one in Saint John's in the Vale (now in Keswick), which is recorded as Smathwaitis c. 1280, the other in Lamplugh, which is recorded as Smaithait in 1596.

The placenames probably derive from Old Norse smá(r) ‘small, little’ + thveit ‘clearing, meadow, paddock’.

This surname may have been absorbed into 1 through confusion of the two names.