Explore the Family Name Waggett

The meaning of Waggett

1. English (Lancashire, Yorkshire and Durham): variant of Wackett with voicing of medial /k/ to /g/, which is perhaps from the Old French (Picard) personal name Waquet, a diminutive of Wacke (see Wack). Alternatively, the name might represent Middle English, Anglo-Norman French wachet, waget ‘light blue’, used of cloth of that color. The surname could allude to someone who wore or sold blue cloth. 2. English: perhaps a nickname from an unrecorded Middle English word wagge-hed from Middle English waggen ‘to wag’ + he(ve)d ‘head’; waggen with the hed meant ‘to nod; also, nod in a coquettish or provocative manner’. Absence of any known medieval bearers of the name, however, makes this proposed etymology less certain.

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