English: occupational name for a physician, from Middle English leche, lache ‘physician’ (Old English lǣce ‘leech; physician, blood-letter, surgeon’). The name refers to the medieval medical practice of bleeding, typically by applying leeches to a patient. The surname is recorded in the late 14th-century Poll Tax Returns for men whose occupation is stated as medicus ‘physician’, or occasionally spicer (spicers acted as apothecaries), but some men named le Leche have unrelated occupations including cultor ‘cultivator, farm laborer’, which suggests that leche could refer to an amateur ‘medicine man’ who supplied folk remedies.