Ackroyd, Akroyd, Ackeroyd, Achroyd, Aykroyd, Akrood, Eckroyd, Ecroyd, Akrode, Eckridge, Eskridge Surname

Ackroyd
English (Yorkshire): topographic name from northern Middle English ake ‘oak’ + royd ‘clearing’.
Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4

Eskridge
English: habitational name, probably from Eskrigg in Cumbria or Eskrigge in Lancashire.
Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4


Eskridge
English
The name Eskridge is of Anglo-Saxon origin and came from when a family lived in a clearing surrounded by oak trees. This Yorkshire surname is derived from the Old English words ac, which means oak, and rod, which means clearing.

Sound was what guided spelling in the essentially pre-literate Middle Ages, so one person's name was often recorded under several variations during a single lifetime. Also, before the advent of the printing press and the first dictionaries, the English language was not standardized. Therefore, spelling variations were common, even among the names of the most literate people. Known variations of the Eskridge family name include Ackroyd, Akroyd, Ackeroyd, Achroyd, Aykroyd, Akrood, Eckroyd, Ecroyd, Akrode, Eckridge and many more.

First found in the West, East, and North Ridings of the county of Yorkshire in the north of England. The Eskrigge and Eskridge variants were found in the parish of Eskrigg in Lancaster.

For political, religious, and economic reasons, thousands of English families boarded ships for Ireland, the Canadas, the America colonies, and many of smaller tropical colonies in the hope of finding better lives abroad. Although the passage on the cramped, dank ships caused many to arrive in the New World diseased and starving, those families that survived the trip often went on to make valuable contributions to those new societies to which they arrived. Early immigrants bearing the Eskridge surname or a spelling variation of the name include : John Ackroyd who settled in Philadelphia Pa. in 1842; Reuden Ackroyd who also settled in Philadelphia in 1873; William Ackroyd who settled in Philadelphia in 1851.