The story
- Old Norse · derived fromgil“ravine, gully”
- English todayGoldthwaite
Perhaps a habitational surname from a minor place in South Yorkshire, named with Old Norse gil (“ravine, gully”) + þveit (“paddock, meadow”), even though the modern surname is more associated with Essex than Yorkshire.
Words from the same roots
Old Norsegil all →
gillghyll
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.