Jane Froud

1 English: nickname either from an unrecorded Middle English * frode ‘wise, prudent’ (Old English frōd) or, possibly, from Middle English froude, frode, frude ‘frog, toad’ (compare Old Scandinavian frauð), though this is not a characteristically southern word. Some of the following post-medieval bearers may alternatively belong with (2), especially the Hants example.

2 English: nickname, sometimes a reduced form of Middle English froward, ‘contrary, wilful, unruly’. See Frewer . This name may, however, have been confused with (1).

3 English: relationship name possibly from the Middle English personal name Frode (from Old Scandinavian Fróði, Frothi; the corresponding Old English Frōda is found only once, and Continental Germanic Frodo is rare). In Normandy Frodo may be Old Scandinavian ( Feilitzen , p. 256); Frodo, 1086 in Domesday Book was a brother of the abbot of Bury Saint Edmunds and was genere Gallus. Although there is no clear evidence, the possibility that the personal name gave rise to a surname cannot be excluded.