Wait (name)

Wait meaning and variations

The word 'Wait," anciently spelled Wayghte or Wayte, is derived from the old high German wahten (to keep watch); it is common in the sense of guard or watchman to all the Teutonic languages,^[1] the German wacht, Dutch vaght, Swedish vakt and English watch. When used as a verb, its meaning is "to stay in expectation of"; as a noun, it denotes a minstrel watchmen.^[2]

When surnames were generally introduced into England in the eleventh century, those who held an office in most cases added its designation to their Christian names, thus: Richard, the minstrel-watchman, who was known as Richard le (the) Wayte, afterward contracted to Richard Wayte. The name has since been spelled Wayte, Wavt, Wayght, Waight, Wait, Waitt, Waite, Wate, Weight, Waiet, etc.^[2]

Notable people include

Wait

Benjamin Wait (1813–1895), Canadian businessman and author
Daniel Guilford Wait (1789–1850), English clergyman, Hebrew scholar and religious writer
Georgiana Claudie Wait, Indonesian actress
Harry Wait (1891–1975), English footballer
James R. Wait, electrical engineer and engineering physicist
John T. Wait (1811–1899), U.S. Representative from Connecticut
John Wait McGauvran (1827–1884), merchant and political figure in Quebec
Norman Wait Harris (1846–1916), American banker
Phoebe Jane Babcock Wait (1838–1904), American physician
Samuel Wait (1789–1867), baptist minister and first president of Wake Forest University
Wait Winthrop (1641–1717), colonial magistrate, military officer, and politician of New England
William Bell Wait (1839–1916), teacher in the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind

Waitt

Charlie Waitt (1853–1912), professional baseball player
Chris Waitt (born 1974), independent filmmaker, musician and writer
Maude C. Waitt, former member of the Ohio Senate
Mick Waitt, association football coach who managed the New Zealand national football team
Richard Waitt (died 1732), Scottish painter
Ted Waitt (born 1963), American billionaire, co-founder of Gateway, Inc

Weight

Carel Weight, a British artist
Doug Weight, an American ice hockey player
Greg Weight, an Australian photographer

Waite

Arthur Edward Waite, occultist and co-creator of the Rider-Waite tarot deck
Arthur Waite (racing driver), Australian racing driver
Catharine Van Valkenburg Waite, United States author, lawyer and women's suffrage activist.
David Waite, Australian rugby league coach
Edgar Ravenswood Waite, Australian zoologist
Harold Roy Waite (1884-1978), American aviator
Jimmy Waite, ice hockey goaltender
John Waite, British rock singer
John Waite (cricketer), South African wicketkeeper–opening batsman
John Musgrave Waite (1820-1884), Victorian fencing master
Morrison Waite, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, 1874–1888
Ralph Waite (1928–2014), American actor, best known for the role of John Walton on the TV series The Waltons
Reginald Waite, Royal Air Force officer
Terry Waite, British humanitarian and author
Thomas Waite (regicide), English Member of Parliament and one of the regicides of King Charles I
Thomas Waite (Under-Secretary for Ireland), 1747–1774
Tommy Waite (born 1972), Northern Irish boxer of the 1990s and 2000s
Waite Hoyt, American baseball player

Wayte

Mary Wayte, former competition swimmer
Anthony Wayte, the Archdeacon of Lewes from 1520 to 1527
Billy Wayte, Canadian Football League, defensive back
William Wayte, Church of England clergyman and a British chess master
Wayte Raymond, a numismatist

References

^ Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary. C. & G. Merriam Co. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
^ ^a ^b Wait, John Cassan (1904). Family records of the descendants of Thomas Wait, of Portsmouth, Rhode Island (1 ed.). New York: JC Wait. p. 4.

This page lists people with the surname Wait.
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.

[TFD-1] Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary. C. & G. Merriam Co. Retrieved 8 April 2015.

[JC_Wait-2] Wait, John Cassan (1904). Family records of the descendants of Thomas Wait, of Portsmouth, Rhode Island (1 ed.). New York: JC Wait. p. 4.

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