English: habitational name from any of the many places, large and small, called Bradford; in particular the city in Yorkshire, which originally rose to prosperity as a wool town. There are others in Derbyshire, Devon, Dorset, Greater Manchester, Norfolk, Somerset, Cheshire, Wiltshire and elsewhere. They are all named with Old English brād ‘broad’ + ford ‘ford’.

History: This name was brought independently to North American by many different bearers from the 17th century onward. William Bradford (1590–1657), born in Austerfield in South Yorkshire, England, the son of a yeoman farmer, was among the Pilgrim Fathers who emigrated to North America on the Mayflower in 1620. He was a signer of the Mayflower Compact and in 1621 he was elected governor of Plymouth colony, being re-elected thirty times. Another William Bradford (1663–1752), printer, came from Barnwell, Leicestershire, England, to Philadelphia, PA, in 1685, subsequently moving to New York, where he set up a printing press and founded a paper mill. His grandson, also called William Bradford (1721–91), was known as ‘the patriot printer’, famous for his Philadelphia newspaper, which among other things denounced the Stamp Act, "which no American can mention without abhorrence".