First name origins & meanings:
- Old English: Red-haired; reed
- English: Red-haired
First name variations: Reed, Reid, Reading, Reade, Reede, Reid, Reed Last name origins & meanings:
- English: nickname for a person with red hair or a ruddy
complexion, from Middle English re(a)d ‘red’.
- English: topographic
name for someone who lived in a clearing, from an unattested Old
English rīed, r̄d ‘woodland clearing’.
- English: Read in Lancashire, the
name of which is a contracted form of Old English
rǣghēafod, from rǣge ‘female roe deer’,
‘she-goat’ + hēafod ‘head(land)’; Rede in Suffolk, so called
from Old English hrēod ‘reeds’; or Reed in Hertfordshire, so
called from an Old English ryhð ‘brushwood’.
- English: A family called Read were established in America in the early 18th
century by John Read, who was born in Dublin, sixth in descent from
Sir Thomas Read of Berkshire, England. His son, George Read
(1733–98), was one of the signers of the Declaration of
Independence, and as a lawyer helped frame the Constitution.
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