Gold Family History

Jewish (Ashkenazic): ornamental name from modern German Gold, Yiddish gold ‘gold’. In North America it is often a reduced form of one of the many compound ornamental names of which Gold is the first element. English and German: from Old English, Old High German gold ‘gold’, applied as a metonymic occupational name for someone who worked in gold, i.e. a refiner, jeweler, or gilder, or as a nickname for someone who either had many gold possessions or bright yellow hair. English: from an Old English personal name Golda (or the feminine Golde), which persisted into the Middle Ages as a personal name. The name was in part a byname from gold ‘gold’, and in part a short form of the various compound names with this first element.

Source: Dictionary of American Family Names ©2013, Oxford University Press