Explore the Family Name Ross

The meaning of Ross

1. Scottish: habitational name from one or other of a number of Scottish and English places called Ross or Roos(e), especially Roose (Lancashire) and Roos (East Yorkshire). The placenames derive from a British ancestor of Welsh rhos ‘moor, heath, plain’, which is the sense of the cognate Gaelic word ros. The Scottish surname has at least three origins. First, the Anglo-Norman family from Roos (East Yorkshire) was introduced to Scotland when Robert of Roos, lord of Wark Castle (Northumberland), married Isabella, an illegitimate daughter of King William the Lion. Second, various families took the name from the province of Ross in northern Scotland and other places of that name. Third, there were Norman families in Scotland by the 13th century who probably derived their name from Rots in Normandy (see 2 below). The descendants of Godfrey de Ros, tenant of the de Morville lords of Cunninghame, were major landholders in Ayrshire, and almost certainly took their name from Rots. The Rose family of Kilravock (Nairnshire) may take their name from either of these three (see Rose). The lairds of Balnagown adopted the surname Ross after the earldom of Ross (to which they considered themselves rightful heirs) had passed into other hands through the female line. 2. English (of Norman origin): habitational name from Rots in Calvados (France), probably named with the ancient Germanic element rod ‘clearing’ (compare Rhodes). This was the original home of a family de Ros, who were established in Kent in 1130 and had major estates in Kent until well into the 13th century. 3. English: habitational name from Wrose, in Shipley, near Bradford (Yorkshire), with re-spelling of Wr- as R- due to the loss of /w/ before /r/ in early modern English pronunciation. The spelling Wrose is no longer current. The placename derives from Old English wrāse ‘knot, something twisted’, referring to the steep-sided hill on which the settlement stands, with the sense ‘broken or twisting hill’. 4. English and German: from the ancient Germanic personal name Rozzo, a short form of various compound names with the first element hrōd ‘fame, renown’, introduced into England by the Normans in the form Roce, Rosce, Rozo. Compare Rossell. 5. Cornish: habitational name from one or other of a number of minor places in Cornwall called Rose, Roose, or Rowse (see Rouse), named with Middle Cornish ros ‘promontory, hill spur, moor’. 6. German and Jewish (Ashkenazic): metonymic occupational name for a breeder or keeper of horses, from Middle High German ros, German Ross ‘horse’; perhaps also a nickname for someone thought to resemble a horse or a topographic or habitational name referring to a house distinguished by the sign of a horse. 7. Americanized form of Jewish Rose 9.

Dictionary of American Family Names, 2nd edition, © Oxford University Press, 2022.

What do people with the surname Ross have in common?

Spoiler alert: it's complicated. People with the same last name are usually no more genetically similar than a randomly sampled group of people from the same population. That said, people with the same surname are more likely to have similar ancestries than randomly sampled individuals. The reason is the tendency of people with similar cultural or geographical backgrounds to preferentially mate with one another. That's why people who share a surname may be more likely to share traits and tendencies in common than people within the general population. Check out the percentages below to see the prevalences of tastes, habits, and traits of people with your surname compared with prevalences among 23andMe users.