Laforest Family History
Laforest Name Meaning
French: topographic name for someone who lived in or near a royal forest, or a metonymic occupational name for a keeper or worker in one, from Old French forest, with the definite article la. Unlike modern French forêt, forest was not simply a word for extensive woodland, but referred specifically to large, partly or mainly wooded areas reserved by law for the king and his nobles to hunt in. Americanized form of French La Forêt, a modern spelling of 1, here translated into English with the article left intact. Compare Lafontaine.
Source: Dictionary of American Family Names ©2013, Oxford University Press