This surname is derived from a nickname. I find no early trace of this name. Paybody seems to have been the original form of the prefix, but what it means I cannot say; compare Gentilcorps, Freebody, Goodbody, Baldbody, &c.

1615. Thomas Paybodie, Leicestershire: Register of the University of Oxford.

— Married — Thomas Stubbs and Elizabeth Pyebody: St. James, Clerkenwell.

1629. — Thomas Mason and Susan Payboddye: ibid.

1635. Francis Peboddy sailed for New England: Hotten's Lists of Emigrants.

(English) = Pea (q.v.) + body [Middle English bodi, Old English bodig] App. a nickname for a showily-dressed individual.

(English) Dweller at the sign of the peacock; one with the qualities of a peacock.

The same as Paybody. Dixon derives it from Pae-body, "one as handsome as a pae or peacock!" This is far-fetched enough for ordinary belief, but Mr. Arthur goes much further, in deducing the lineage of the name from one Boadie, a kinsman of Queen Boadicea, who escaped into Wales, and there got the name of Pea, or mountain, prefixed to his name.

There is an ancient tradition (we give it for what it is worth), that this name was derived from one Boadie, a kinsman of Queen Boadicea, who assisted her in her revolt against the Romans. After the Britons were subdued by the Romans, Queen Boadicea dispatched herself by poison, and Boadie, with a remnant of the Britons, escaped to the mountains of Wales. Boadie, among the Cambri or Britons, signified a man or a great man, and Pea signified a large hill a mountain, from which Boadie came to be called Peabodie, or the Mountain man, which became the name of the tribe.

Pabode held a fief from the see of Durham, t. William I. He was probably of Flemish origin. Henry Pappede held this fief 1165 (Liber Niger), and from him descended the family of Pappady, Pabody, or Peabody, from which the celebrated philanthropist of the name.

(English), anciently Paybody, Pae body; i.e., One handsome as a pae or peacock? The name first appears temp. Hen. VIII. Prettyman, Freebody, Goodbody, Lightbody, and Truebody, q. v., are English names; and likewise Body, which is probably from the Anglo-Saxon “boda,” messenger, preacher. (variant: de Beaucorps, Belhomme, and Rumpff.)