Couch is a
surname. It has two different origins. It is a Cornish name thought to have derived from Cornish "cough" (red) and to have been a nickname for a redheaded man (the usual Cornish pronunciation is "cooch"). The Cornish surname appears in 1160 as "Coh" and over the centuries as "Coch," "Cogh," "Cooch," "Cough," "Cuche," "Cowche," "Cowtch," "Coutch," etc., until the spelling became standardized in recent centuries, generally as "Couch."[1] There is also an English name Couch which probably originated as a name for a maker of beds or bedding.[2] The English surname has variant forms Coucha, Couche, Coucher, Couchman and Cowcha.[2]
^P. H. Reaney: A Dictionary of British Surnames, Second edition, with corrections and additions by R. M. Wilson, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1983, pp. 85, 149.
^
abPatrick Hanks et al. (2002) The Oxford Names Companion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
ISBN0-19-860561-7; p. 144.
Surname list
This page lists people with the
surnameCouch. If an
internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that
link by adding the person's
given name(s) to the link.