First name content excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to 30,000 Baby Names © 2005 by Marcia Layton Turner. Buy this book online or call 1-800-253-6476.
Last name content copyright © 2006 Patrick Hanks.
Last name origin & meaning:
French: variant spelling of Gadebois (Artois), itself a variant of Gâtebois, a topographic name composed of the elements gâté ‘spoilt’, ‘laid waste’ + bois ‘wood’. In New England, this has been rendered as Wood in English.