Woods Family History

English and Scottish: topographic name for someone who lived in the woods (see Wood). Irish: English name adopted as a translation of Ó Cuill ‘descendant of Coll’ (see Quill), or in Ulster of Mac Con Coille ‘son of Cú Choille’, a personal name meaning ‘hound of the wood’, which has also been mistranslated Cox, as if formed with coileach ‘cock’, ‘rooster’.

Source: Dictionary of American Family Names ©2013, Oxford University Press