Family name origins & meanings
- English : status name from Middle English gode ‘good’ + man ‘man’, in part from use as a term for the master of a household. In Scotland the term denoted a landowner who held his land not directly from the crown but from a feudal vassal of the king.
- English : from the Middle English personal name Godeman, Old English Gōdmann, composed of the elements gōd ‘good’ or god ‘god’ + mann ‘man’.
- English : from the Old English personal name Gūðmund, composed of the elements gūð ‘battle’ + mund ‘protection’ , or the Old Norse cognate Guðmundr.
- Americanized form of Jewish Gutman or German Gutmann.
- This name was brought independently to New England by many bearers from the 17th century onward. Richard Goodman was one of the founders of Hartford, CT, (coming from Cambridge, MA, with Thomas Hooker) in 1635.