Boyd (surname)


Boyd is an ancient Scottish surname. The name is attached to Simon, one of several brothers and children of Alan, son of Flathald. Simon's son Robert was called Boyt or Boyd from the Celtic term boidhe—meaning fair or yellow. While the Celtic origin might be considered improbable, Saxon names from the same period such as Boed or Boyd were also present during that time and may well have been married into the Steward family however, Robert the Bruce granted lands to Sir Robert Boyd as the ancestor of the earls of Kilmarnock. The Scottish peerage of the earls of Kilmarnock ends shortly after William Boyd rebelled in the Battle of Culloden in 1745. William was arrested and executed at the Tower of London in 1746. He left a widow and three sons including James, Lord Boyd who married and succeeded his father as the Earl of Errol, taking his mother's title.
Another theory is of territorial origins which may have been taken from the name; Bhoid, the Gaelic term for the island of Bute, located in the Firth of Clyde. The surname was very common in Edinburgh in the 17th century. The Scottish Gaelic form of the surname is Boid, and Bhoid.

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