This surname is derived from the name of an ancestor. 'the son of Richard,' from the North-English and Bordernick. Richie. In the United States Richie and Richey still live. These forms seem to be extinct in England, at having crept in, as in the case of Pritchard.

Richie of the Moat, 1581-7: Nicolson and Bum, History Westm. and Cumb.

Richie Bell, 1581-7: ibid.

Richie Maxwell, 1581-7: ibid.

Richie Blakeburnel 1602: ibid.

1793. Married — William Ritchie and Letitia Robertson: St. George, Hanover Square.

(Teutonic and French-Teut.) Powerfully Brave [Old Teutonic Ríchard, Ríkhard, etc.— Old English ríce (mod. rich) = O.H.Ger. ríchi, ríhhi (mod. reich) = Old Saxon ríki = Dutch rijk = Gothic reik-s = Old Norse rík-r, powerful, rich + Old English h(e)ard = O.H.Ger. hart-Old Saxon hard = Dutch hard = Gothic hardu-s = Old Norse harð-r, hard, brave, firm] The great popularity of this name may be said to have begun with Ríc(e)hard, that son of Hlóðhere, the 7th-cent. king of Kent, who became a monk at Lucca, Richard is an extremely common name in France, where it is a synonym for a man of wealth (‘un richard’) and where it also occurs with the diminutive suffixes -eau (-el), -et, -ot, -on, -in.

Cp. Ricard.

A diminutive of Richard, which see. Anderson (Scot. Nat., II, p. 31) errs in saying that William de Dyck was first magistrate of Edinburgh (1296) the magistrate's name was Deaeryk. John Dic, witness in Ayr, 1490 (Ayr, p. 94), Wille Dic was 'dekin of the bakstaris' of Stirling, 1526 (SBR., p. 28), John Dyk or Dik was bailie of David, earl of Craufurd in Perthshire, 1547 (Gaw, 46), and Alexander Dik was archdean of Glasgow, 1555 (REG., p. 581—582). Sir William Dick of Braid, owner (for his time) of the vast fortune of £226,000 (equal to more than £2,000,000 at the present day), financier of the armies of the Covenant and upholder of the Stewart cause, had his reward by dying of starvation in a debtor's prison in Westminster, 1658. Sir Charles Dick, lineal descendant of Sir William, acting as custodian of the Brighton Museum, renewed application in 1873 for the meagre pension which had been continued under successive sovereigns till 1845 (Wilson, Memorials of Edinburgh, II, p. 10).

'son of Dick,' which see. A Border surname. Thom or Thomas Dicson was the faithful follower of the Douglas in the surprise and capture of Castle Douglas on Palm Sunday, 1307 (Barbour, Brus, IV Jamieson's ed.). William Dicsoun witnessed a charter by John Skinner, burgess of Inverness, c. 1360 (Grant, III, p. 12), and William Dicson or Dicsoun appears as bailie of Aberdeen in 1398 (SCM., V, p. 13; CRA., p. 376). Andrew Dicsoun held a land in Edinburgh, 1400 (Egidii, p. 37), Henry Dikson, Scotsman, had a safe conduct into England in 1426 and William Dicson, Scotsman, had the same in 1445 (Bain, IV, 990, 1181), and Jmes Dekyson or Dekysoun was rector of Kirknutho, 1472, and prebendary of Guthre, 1474 (REB., I, 114; II, 198). Wyll Dekyson, custumar, witnessed resignation of a feu in Peebles, 1471 (Scots Lore, p. 52), Patric Dicson de Mersantone granted a charter of land to his son and heir, Robert Dicson, 1472 (BNCH., XXIV, p. 89), and Patrik Diksone, William Diksone, and Thomas Diksone were summoned in 1479 to answer to Parliament for treason and other crimes (APS., II, p. 129). William Dekesoune was charged with the slaughter of George Myddilmest, 1513 (Trials, I, p. 87), the seal of Isobel Dyxsoun is appended to a charter of lands in the town of Yester dated 1527 (Macdonald, 643). Bessie Dikesone appears in Dernik, 1606 (RRM., I, p. 11), and John Dichison was shoemaker in Aberdeen, 1721 (NSCM., II, p. 109). Two brothers, Dickson of Montrose, went to Sweden in beginning of nineteenth century, engaged in business and amassed great wealth. A descendant, Oscar Dickson (1823—1897), made many gifts to science, etc., and fitted out Nordenskiold's Spitsbergen expedition in 1872. Decesovne 1481, Dekeson 1513, Dekisoun 1473, Dekysoun 1457, Dickesoun 1488, Dikesoune 1567, Dikessoune 1567, Dikiesoun 1607, Dikkesone 1505, Dikkyson, 1515, Diksonne 1616, Dikyson 1488, Duekieson 1712, Duckison 1724, Dukison 1647, Dyxsoun 1527; Dikesoun, Dikkesoun, Dykesoun.

Alan Richert, a follower of the earl of Cassilis, was respited for murder in 1526 (RSS., I, 3386). Thomas Rechard, 1561 (CMN., 80). As forename: Richart Strathern, 1462. An Old English personal name meaning "powerfully rich" (rice + h(e)ard).

'son of Richard,' which see. Thome filius Ricardi had a charter of the barony of Symundestone in the sheriffdom of Lanark from Robert I, c. 1315-21 (RMS., I, 78). Laurence filius Ricerdi was a tenant of the earl of Douglas in Louchurde in 1376 (RHM., II, p. 16). In 1359 Murdac Richardesson, Scottish merchant, and others, complained that their vessel was captured and sunk by the English during a truce (Bain, IV, 23). David Richardsone, servant of William Olyfaunt, had a safe conduct into England in 1425 (ibid., 986), John Ricardi held land in Aberdeen in 1451 (REA., II, p. 297), and Robert Richardson of Scotland had a safe conduct into England in 1464 (Bain, IV, 1343). Jak Richardson held part of the Grange of Kerso before 1469 (Cupar-Angus, I, p. 154) Duncane Richardsone was king's pursuivant in 1529 (Irvine, I, p. 36), Master Robert Rychartsone, a cleric, was provost of Sanct Marie Isle and treasurer to Mary, Queen of Scots in 1567 (OPS., II, p. 634), and Thomas Richartson, sailor, was burgess of Dysart in 1640 (Inquis., 2518). Rechartsoun 1553, Rechertson 1540, Rechertsovn 1588, Richartsovn 1556, Richertsoun 1525, Richesoun (in Workman MS.), Richisone 1688.

Formerly a common Border surname. From 'Richie,' a diminutive of Richard, with intrusive t. In some instances curtailed from (MAc)Rrrchie, which see. Michael Rechy in Inverness in the fourteenth century (Macbain V, p. 11). Duncan Richie was a messenger in Perth, 1505 (Miine, p. 14), and John Riche witnessed an instrument of sasine in Brechin in the same year (RED., II, 149). Duncan Riche was the king's sheriff of Inverness in 1512 (OPS., II, p. 661), and there is mention of the lands of Robert Reche in Glasgow, 1550 (Protocols, I). The wife of David Reche in Aberdeen was fined for brewing ale, 1538 (CRA., p. 157). William Ritchie founded the Scotsman newspaper in Edinburgh in 1817, and Alexander Ritchie was an Edinburgh artist of repute in early half of last century. As forename: Ritsche Criste was 'delatit of lipyr' (leprosy) in Stirling, 1520 (SBR., p. 5), and Riche Hynd is recorded in Dunfermline in 1577. Rechie 1574, Rechtie 1682, Rychy 1474, Rychze (z = y) 1509, Rytchie 1609.

This surname is derived from the name of an ancestor. 'the son of Richard'.; v. Ricard.

(English, Welsh) The son of Richard (rule, hard).

A contraction of Richard, which signifies of a generous disposition.

The son of Richard.

(Saxon.) Of a powerful, rich, or generous disposition, from ric, rich, and ard, nature or disposition.

The same as Dicks or Dickens, the s being a contraction of son—the son of Dick or Richard.

The son of Dick or Richard.

The familiar abbreviation of Richard. It may come from the Dutch Dyck, a bank or dike, a bulwark thrown up in the Low Countries against the sea or rivers to prevent inundation.

The son of Dick or Richard. The family are descended from Richard Keith, a son of Hervey de Keith, Earl Marshal of Scotland, by his wife Margaret daughter of William third Lord Douglas. This Richard Keith bore for his arms azure, three mullets argent, being the arms of Douglas, a chief or, three pallets gules, being the arms of Keith-his son Thomas Dicson, bom 1247, was the immediate ancestor of the family.

An abbreviation of Richard. The family are supposed to be of Danish origin, and to be the same as Van Dyke. William de Dyck, Alderman of Edinburgh, 1296, was the ancestor of some of the Scottish families of Dick.

This baptismal name, besides becoming itself a surname, has given rise to many others; viz., Richards, Richardson, Rich, Ritchie, Riches, Rick, Ricks, Rix, Rickson, Rixon, Ritson, Rickards, Rieket, Ricketts. From Dick and Hitchin, two ' nurse-names ' of Richard, we also derive Dix, Dicks, Dickson, Dixon, Digons, Dickens, Dickins, Dickinson, Dickerson, Dickison; and Hitchins, Hitchinson, Hitchcock, Hitchcox.

Today Richard is among the ten most frequent patronyms in France, and it is also common in French Canada and New England.* It is found occasionally in the British Isles, but there and in the U.S. Richards is the major Anglo form. Given the frequency of the name in France, it is not surprising that several individuals named Richard were among the earliest inhabitants of New Orleans, and before 1745 one Jean Richard dit Avignon had settled with his family at Pointe Coupee.

However, probably none of these early Richards left traceable descendants in the state.

Most of Louisiana's Richards trace ancestry to Acadian refugees who entered the colony during the last half of the eighteenth century.

In the 1760s many settled along the Mississippi River (Acadian Coast) and in the Opelousas and Attakapas districts. Later, in 1785 several Richards, Acadian exiles from France, were sent to Bayou Lafourche.

The 1766 Census of Louisiana listed four Richard male adults from Acadia on the Mississippi River in present St. James and Ascension parishes and two in the Opelousas District.

All may have arrived either in 1765 or early 1766 from Halifax.

Among the St. James settlers were Joseph dit le Vieux and wife Anne Blanchard (and probably his brother, Claude with wife Cécile Melançon); Jean-Baptiste and wife Marie Cormier; and two brothers, Joseph (m. 1766 Agnès Hébert) and Jean-Marie (m. 1767 Rosalie Bourgeois).

In 1767 the contingent on the Mississippi was augmented by the arrival of four Richard families who had been exiled to Maryland, all of whom were settled near St. Gabriel, below Baton Rouge: widow Marie Richard with three sons; Amand and wife Anne-Marie Breaux; Mathurin and wife Élizabeth Landry; and Joseph, single, with his sister Marguerite.

In 1785 one of the Richard refugee families from France, Pierre with wife Françoise Daigle, was also sent to St. Gabriel but later settled along the river near Baton Rouge.

Although some of the Richards who settled originally on the Mississippi soon moved into the Opelousas District, most remained along the river, as did their descendants, until well into the nineteenth century.

For example, sons of Jean-Marie with Rosalie Bourgeois (Pierre, Michel, and Jean-Pierre) by 1820 were sugar planters of modest means on their lands opposite Convent in St. James.

However, like many of their habitant neighbors, probably most of the less wealthy Richards along the river sold out to Anglo planters and moved inland. Nonetheless, in 1880, twelve Richard families still lived in St.

James, eleven in Ascension and Iberville parishes, respectively.

But today few Richards are found as rural folk in the river parishes, most having moved into Baton Rouge or New Orleans.

The Opelousas and Attakapas districts, not the Mississippi River, became the chief centers of Richard families in Louisiana during the eighteenth century and remain so today. There, the clan was begun by two Richard brothers, Pierre and Victor (sons of Alexandre with Madeleine Thibodeaux of Beaubassin, Acadia), who probably arrived in 1765 or 1766 with their relatives of the Acadian Coast.

Pierre, the elder, came with his wife Marguerite Dugas and children, whereas Victor did not marry (Marie Brasseaux) until 1772.

Both settled as farmers and stockmen in the Bellevue prairies south of Opelousas.

Pierre and his six sons were the main forebears of the Richards of southwestern Louisiana, producing far more progeny than his brother Victor, who reared only two sons.

All of Pierre's sons first settled near their father in the Bellevue area, but before 1800 Pierre, Jr., had obtained land on the west bank of Bayou Vermilion, near the site of Lafayette in the Attakapas, there starting another line of the Richard family.

Soon thereafter a cousin of Pierre, Jr.-Joseph Richard (m.

1787 Pélagie Babin), son of Armand and Marie Breaux — moved his family (including five grown sons) to the Lafayette area, thereby adding to the Richard contingent in that district.

The Bellevue and adjacent sections of the Opelousas District also attracted several Richard families from the Acadian Coast, such as Mathurin (m. 1765 Élizabeth Landry) who settled in the Grand Coteau area sometime before 1777.

As with many early French settlers in southwestern Louisiana, stock raising became an important part of livelihood among most Richard families. By 1788 those in the Bellevue area (Pierre, Sr., Victor and sons) had accumulated a total of nearly 500 head of cattle and 100 horses; Mathurin of Grand Coteau had 45 cattle and 27 horses.

Although livestock ranged mainly on common pastures in the open prairie, some Richards acquired properties as cattle ranches. For example, in 1811 Mathurin claimed land for that purpose along Bayou Cannes in westernmost St. Landry Parish;20 in 1800 Pierre, Jr., of Vermilion and his brother Louis purchased some 2,700 acres of prairie from the Attakapas Indians in the Calcasieu frontier. By 1850, five Richard families had settled in Calcasieu Parish, most of them as farmers on the lower Mermentau River, but one, Valérien, grandson of Pierre, Jr., at that time was running over 2,000 head of cattle in the eastern part of the parish.

Between 1850 and 1900 many Richards had moved as small farmers from their Bellevue and Lafayette homelands into Acadia Parish.

In 1785, six Richard households, Acadian refugees from France, settled along Bayou Lafourche in Assumption Parish.

During the nineteenth century that area together with adjacent Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes served as a secondary center for Richards in Louisiana.

Of the six original Richard families on the Lafourche, only two were outstanding in terms of numbers of descendants: that headed by Basile (m. 1788 Marie Cormier) and that of Charles (m. Marie Trahan).

The former was by far the more important with six sons, all of whom settled near Thibodeauxville, save one, JeanBaptiste (m. 1810 Anne Rassicot, 1819 Céleste Breaux), and descendants, who occupied farms along the lower Lafourche near Lockport.

Charles Richard and his descendants likewise settled near Thibodeauxville. In addition, during the 1820s and 1830s several Richard families from St. James moved to the Lafourche area.

For instance, three sons of Pierre Richard and Elise Melançon (Placide, Joseph, and Jean-Baptiste) settled in Terrebonne Parish.

Until the end of the past century Richard families maintained their small farms in Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes.

Today, however, few are left in that area; likely many have moved into New Orleans, Baton Rouge, or Lafayette

Richardson. —Essentially a north of England name, extending across the border into Dumfriesshire, and also, but to a less extent, characteristic of most of the east coast counties as far south as Kent and Sussex. The counties of Cumberland, Westmoreland, Durham, Northumberland, and the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire contain the greatest number of the name; and the frequent occurrence of the contracted form of Ritson in the three first - named counties gives greater accentuation to its northern homo. Next distinguished for the name of Richardson are Notts, Lincolnshire, and Essex. This name takes the place of Richards in the north of England, and compensates for its absence or its rarity in nearly all the counties on the eastern coast. Excepting, Notts, which, may be regarded as lying between the two areas, the names are never associated in any numbers in the same county. Their combination in Notts gives that county further pre - eminence in respect of the different varieties of Richard as a surname The distributions of the various forms of Dick, the nickname of Richard, such as Dicks, Dixon, Dickens, Dickenson, etc., etc., require a separate treatment.

The surname Richardson derives from one of the most popular first names in the land. The name Richard was brought to England by the Normans in 1066, and its origins are Germanic. It began life as the name Richard which, in Old German, means ‘powerful-brave’.

Richard was popular right from the start and appears as a first name many times in the Domesday Book, usually Latinised to Ricardus. It was further popularised out of admiration for the valiant efforts of Richard I (known as ‘The Lionheart’). Even the exploits of the next two Richards (especially the notorious hunchbacked Richard III) failed to dim its popularity.

Naturally, Richard soon began to spawn a whole number of diminutives and variations. Dick was one of the first and is still the most common-as is seen in the phrase ‘every Tom, Dick and Harry’. The variation Dick gave rise to the surnames Dickens, Dickenson and Dickson.

Richard, in its standard form, gave rise to the surnames Richard, Richardson and Richards. The surname Richards-‘descendent of, dependent of, Richard’-is most common in Cornwall, South Wales and the Midlands. Richardson, on the other hand, is common all over the country, with the excep­tion of the West Country. The name is most popular in the north.

Other derivatives of the first name Richard (most of which have died out) gave rise to such widespread surnames as Hick, Hitch, Richie, Richey, and Rick (Ricks and Rickson), also Rich (though this is sometimes derived from a nickname), Richett (from the Old French diminutive Richot), and Rickman (which means ‘servant of Richard’). Hud, sometimes a pet name for Richard, is more usually used for Hugh (see Hughes). Hitchmough and Hickmott both mean ‘Richard’s brother-in-law’.

The earliest mention of a form of this name as a surname is in the Hundred Rolls of 1276 for Oxford. There one Thomas Richard is mentioned.

Versatile British physicist and psychologist Lewis Fry Richard­son (1881—1953) first applied mathematical techniques to predict the weather reasonably accurately. He died in Kilmun, Argyllshire, one of the wettest spots on Scotland’s west coast.

I.A. Richards (b. 1893) English literary critic and semantics expert, was co-author of The Meaning of Meaning. Despite the seeming circularity of the title, it is one of the most influential books ever written on the symbolism of language.

Richardson’s Number is the parameter used to predict the occurrence of fluid turbulence.

Richardson and its related names have been held by some of literature’s most lasting figures. Samuel Richardson (1689— 1761) is the founder of the English domestic novel. As a young man he was so proficient as a letter writer that others employed him to compose their correspondence. This led to his first successful book Familiar Letters, a how-to guide to letter composition. Novels, starting with Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, all in epistolatory form, followed and all were vastly popular. Charles Dickens (1812—78) possibly the best­ loved author of all time, drew on his impoverished childhood to write novels that exposed the hypocrisies and evils of Victorian England. All were first published in monthly instalments.

The phrase ‘a Dickensian childhood’ has since entered the language.

In the United Kingdom one place name relates directly to this surname-Richards Castle. Canada has towns called Richard, Richards Landing and Richardson Station while the United States has 6 related-name towns. Geographic namesakes are common and include mountains in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the Richards Deep in the Pacific and Richardsbreen glacier in Norway.

With about 104,000 namesakes Richardson is the 51st most popular surname in England and Wales. (The name is not common enough throughout Scotland to be counted separately.) Richardson is notably popular in and around Teesside where an estimated one in about 245 families bears the name. In descending numerical order Leeds, Nottingham and Bradford are other Richardson strongholds. Around the world Richards and Richardsons are most common in Canberra (one in 461 families), Wellington (one in 507) and Ottawa (one in 527). The United States tallies Richards and Richardsons together-an estimated combined total of 429,000 makes this their 34th most popular surname.