This surname is derived from a geographical locality. 'of Lichfield,' a city in Staffordshire.

1450. Richard Lychfeld: Register of the University of Oxford.

1504. Thomas Fowler and Anne Lichefeild, widow: Marriage Lic. (London).

1663. Married — Henry Cookman and Elizabeth Litchfeild: St. James, Clerkenwell.

Belonging to Lichfield (Staffs).

This interesting place-name has given rise to much discussion as to its first element-the second being Old English feld, a field, plain. The pre-Conquest forms are: Licitfeld, Licidfeld, Lyccidfelth (Bede only), Licetfeld (frequent), Liccetfeld, Liccedfeld, Liccidfeld, Licifeld, Lichefeld, Lichfeld, &c. The old historians’ etymology of Old English líc, corpse (to which colour has been given by a well-known tradition and the corpora­tion seal representing ‘three slain kings lying on a field’), is sufficiently disproved by the early forms of the name (with -it-, -et-, &c.). To ‘The Academy’ for 1886 and 1889 Dr. H. Bradley contributed articles identifying Lichfield with the Cair Luit- Coit of Nennius (= mod. Welsh Caer Llwyd-Coed= the Fort of the Grey Wood), and the Lecto-cetum of the Ravenna Geo­grapher, Etocetum of the Antonine Itinerary. As to the Nennian name, Mr. Duignan, in his ‘Staffs Place-Names,’ 1902, says (p. 92) that Dr. Bradley ‘fails altogether to identify this place with Lichfield’; and he affirms that L(Etocetum is now Wall, 2 miles south-east of Lichfield. Mr. Duignan favours an etymology proposed many years ago—O.E. læc-, ‘water’: this suits topographically, but historically and philologically cannot be accepted; the early forms with -it-, -et-, &c., cannot be ignored.

In his paper on English Place-Names in ‘Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association’(191o) Dr. Bradley clears up the matter by his statement that “the Angles . . . seem to have left the old fortified town uninhabited and made their own settlement in the ‘Luitcoit-field’— that is to say, in the tract of country ad­jacent to the old Lētocēton” (p.21). His view has been accepted by Mr. Haverfield and leading Celticists.

(English) One who came from Litchfield (hill slope), in Hampshire.

The city in co. Stafford, more properly written Lichfield.

From the Saxon lich, a dead carcase, and field, because a great many suffered martyrdom there in the time of Diocletian. The name of a bishop's see in Staffordshire.