Roth Family History

German and Jewish (Ashkenazic): nickname for a person with red hair from Middle High German rōt German rot ‘red’. As a Jewish name it is at least in part artificial: its frequency as a Jewish surname is disproportionate to the number of Jews who one may reasonably assume were red-headed during the period of surname adoption.

This form of the German surname (especially in this sense and in the sense 2 below) is also found in France (Alsace and Lorraine) where it is most common and in some other European countries e.g. Czechia and Croatia.

German and English (Middlesex): topographic name for someone who lived on land that had been cleared from Old High German rod Middle English roth(e) (Old English roth) ‘clearing’. In England the name may also be a habitational name from any of the places like Rothend in Ashdon (Essex) Roe End in Markyate (Hertfordshire) Roe Green in Hatfield (Hertfordshire) or Roe Green in Sandon (Hertfordshire).

German: from a short form of any of various ancient Germanic personal names with the first element hrōd ‘renown’. Compare Rode 1 Ross.

German: habitational name from any of numerous places so named. See also Rott. German (Röth): habitational name from any of several places so named in Schleswig-Holstein Baden-Württemberg.