Family name origins & meanings
- Scottish : of uncertain origin, perhaps a habitational name from an unidentified place named with Middle English wether ‘sheep’, ‘ram’ + spong, spang, a dialect term for a narrow strip of land.
- John Witherspoon (1723–94), Presbyterian minister and teacher, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was born at Gifford, near Edinburgh, Scotland, and came to North America in 1768 after being recruited as president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University).