Wakefield Surname

English: habitational name from the city of Wakefield in West Yorkshire, and probably also from a place of the same name in Northamptonshire. Both are named from an Old English wacu ‘vigil’, ‘festival’ (a derivative of wac(i)an ‘to watch or wake’) + feld ‘pasture’, ‘open country’, i.e. a patch of open land where a fair was held.
Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4