Family name origins & meanings
- English : topographic name from Middle English atte weye ‘by the road’, or a habitational name for someone from Atway or Way, both in Devon. The word way (Old English weg) was the usual term for a road in Old and Middle English, as opposed to a stræt ‘paved road’ (usually a Roman road). The term rād or road, originally meaning ‘act of riding’, ‘outing on horseback’, did not come to mean ‘highway’ until Shakespeare’s time.