Gilford is a surname of English origin, derived from

Guildford Guildford () is a town in west Surrey, England, around south-west of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The nam ...

, in

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

. The name was first recorded as "Gyldeford" in the

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the ninth century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of ...

s, circa 800 AD, "Guldeford" in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086, and "Geldeford" in the

Pipe rolls The Pipe rolls, sometimes called the Great rollsBrown ''Governance'' pp. 54–56 or the Great Rolls of the Pipe, are a collection of financial records maintained by the English Exchequer, or Treasury, and its successors, as well as the Exche ...

between 1130 and 1156. The place name means "the ford where golden flowers grow", from the

old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

elements "gylde", which is a derivative of "gold", and "ford". Notable people with the surname include: * Darren Gilford (born 1982), Maltese sprinter * David Gilford (born 1965), English golfer * Dorothy M. Gilford, American statistician * Gwynne Gilford (born 1946), American actress * Hastings Gilford (1861–1941), English surgeon * Jack Gilford (1908–1990), American actor * Madeline Lee Gilford (1923–2008), American actress * Yvonne Gilford (c.1941–1996), Australian nurse murdered in Saudi Arabia * Zach Gilford (born 1982), American actor

References

{{surname English-language surnames