11,642 Global COSBY Family Members

COSBY Family History

This interesting surname is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a locational name from a place thus called, south west of Leicester in Leicestershire. Recorded as "Cossebi" in the Domesday Book of 1086, and as "Cosseby" in the 1236 Feet of Fines for that county, the component elements of the placename are the Olde English personal name "Cossa" (also the first element of Cosham, Hampshire), with the Olde English "by" from the Old Norse "byr", homestead, settlement. Locational surnames were originally given to local landowners, and the Lord of the Manor, and especially to those former inhabitants who left their place of origin to work or settle elsewhere.