Updated June 9, 2019

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Family name origins & meanings

  • Irish, English, and German : variant of Wild.
  • Dutch (de Wilde) and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : nickname for a violent, unruly, and irascible man, from Middle Dutch wilde ‘wild’, German Wilde ‘wild man’, ‘savage’.
  • The writer Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) was born in Dublin, Ireland, descended from Ralph Wilde, a builder from Walsingham near Durham, England, who had moved to Ireland in the 17th century. Richard Henry Wilde (1789–1847), born in Dublin, emigrated to Baltimore, MD, in 1797 and was raised in GA, where he became a congressman (1815–17, 1827–35). He moved to New Orleans, LA, in 1843 and was a professor at the University of LA (now Tulane).