Pye Family History

English (north-West Midlands, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Norfolk): nickname from Middle English (Old French) pie ‘magpie’, which could be given to someone who wore black and white clothing, had grey-streaked dark hair, or had a loud chattering voice and impertinent behaviour, or was cunning or sly. The uncomplimentary senses derive from the bird's behavior and are recorded uses of the word in Middle English and early Modern English.

English: occasionally perhaps a topographic or habitational name referring to a house or inn named Pie ‘magpie’. There were two London taverns so named, but whether these gave rise to a hereditary surname is not known. Surnames derived from house and inn signs are rare in English.

English (of Norman origin): nickname from Anglo-Norman French and Middle English pie ‘merciful, compassionate, kind’, a variant of Old French, Anglo-Norman French piu, peu; see Pew (2).

Welsh English (Herefordshire): apparently an Anglicized shortened form of Welsh ap Hugh, ap Hew, ap Huw ‘son of Hugh’. The Welsh patronymic was normally shortened to Pugh and Pew, but in this case, it seems that the diphthong in /piu/ has been simplified to /pi:/, spelled Pye and Pie, becoming pronounced in early Modern English as /pai/.

The change might have been made on the analogy of Pye, the Anglo-Norman French name in 3 above, as a variant of Pew. Alternatively, since this gentry family seems to be English or Anglo-Norman in origin, perhaps their name was the name in 3 above, but it was mistakenly re-interpreted as a variant of Welsh Pugh, a relatively frequent surname in Herefordshire through Welsh immigration.