A male name. Old English Wilfrith, compound of will ‘will’, and frith ‘peace'. St Wilfrith or Wilfrid (634- 709), Bishop of York and one of the foremost men of his day, has some 50 churches dedicated to him. His name seems not to have survived in use after the Norman Conquest and has not been noted before the late 16th C. It was revived by the Tractarians in the 19th C and is now common.

WILFRID, From the A. -S. Wilfrith, which, as in the parent Teutonic, means ‘resolute peace’. The first element (wil) is thus the same as in William, q. v. The ‘earnest but turbulent Wilfrith, the Yorkshire bishop’, who died in 709 and was canonized, ‘hardly deserved to be’ so named: though several times banished from England, ‘he sacrificed himself utterly for the good of his flock.’ Mainly from him came the now obsolete Wilfroy, especially frequent in registers of Yorkshire; operative, too, was Wilfrid the Younger, who was closely associated with Whitby, York, and Ripon,—died in 744,—and is often confused, because he too was a bishop and has likewise been canonized, with his more famous predecessor. Yonge; Benedictines.

WILFRID. This name has been translated ‘much peace’ or ‘resolute peace.’ But Wilfred, found written Wilfrith, is the same as the Old German name Willifrid, which Junius translates ‘volens pacem vel affectuum tranquillitas; ‘but the name is rather from viel-fridy powerful protector; from frieden, tueri, tutari.

Teutonic (masculine) - Peace of many.