Etymology

shad

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Today it means: Any one of several species of food fishes that make up the genus Alosa in the family Clupeidae, to which the herrings also belong; river herring. Full definition →

Middle English shadde ← Old English sċeadd
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shad · noun1

  1. Old English · inherited fromsċeadd
  2. Middle English · inherited fromshadde
  3. English todayshad

From Middle English shadde, from Old English sċeadd, of uncertain origin. Compare Low German Schade (“shad, herring”), Scottish Gaelic sgadan (“herring”), Welsh ysgadan. Possibly from Scandinavian/North Germanic (compare dialectal Norwegian skadd (“small whitefish”), Old Norse skata (“kind of fish”)), but the order of borrowing is unclear and the ultimate origin of these words is obscure.

Shad · proper noun2

* As an Urdu and Persian surname, from شاد (šâd, “glad, cheerful”). This surname is mostly found in Pakistan. * As an English surname, from the noun shad. * As a German surname, Americanized from Schade, itself related to Schaden (“damage”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.