Rye Family History

English: topographic name for someone who lived on an island or patch of firm ground surrounded by fens, from a misdivision of the Middle English phrase atter ye ‘at the island’ (from Old English eg, ieg ‘island’). adm English: topographic name for someone who lived near a river or stream, from a misdivision of the Middle English phrase atter eye ‘at the river’ (from Old English ea ‘river’). adm; ADM: please check these two; you have ye and eye the other way round in your first checking. KH English: topographic name for someone living at a place where rye (Old English ryge) was grown, or perhaps a metonymic occupational name for someone who grew or sold it. adm Norwegian: habitational name from a farmstead so named, most of them from Old Norse rjóðr ‘clearing in a forest’, but others from ry ‘dry place with stones’. Danish: habitational name from a place called Rye. OV, LP. Hundreds of Danish and Norwegian in IGI, but only 18 for Sweden

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