Shaw Family History

English (Yorkshire and Lancashire): from Middle English s(c)hawe s(c)haghe ‘small wood grove thicket’ (Old English sceaga). The surname may be topographic for someone who lived in or by a small wood or habitational for someone from any of the many places so named.

Shaw and Shawe are most frequent in Lancashire and Yorkshire where Shaw in Oldham (Lancashire) may be a principal source of the surname. The English and Lowland Scottish surname was also established in Ireland in the 17th century.

Scottish: shortened form of various surnames from the Gaelic personal name Sitheach derived from sithech ‘wolf’. Irish (Down and Antrim): adopted for Ó Síthigh ‘descendant of Sítheach’ a personal name based on sítheach ‘peaceful’.

Compare Sheehy. Americanized form of some similar (like-sounding) Jewish surname. Chinese: variant Romanization of the surname 邵 see Shao.