Lufa

Male
DWP
4 of 5

Discussion of the name

Lufa is an Old English masculine name that along with the feminine form Lufu is derived from lufu ‘love’; it can also represent a shortened form of dithematic names with this as the first element and, in later texts, sometimes shows confusion with the name Leofa (Redin 1919: 14-15, 51, 124 n1; von Feilitzen 1937: 310, 321).

There are four entries for this name in the PASE corpus, with Lufa 1 being a tenth-century landholder in Hampshire and Isle of Wight, Lufa 2 being an eleventh-century landholder in East Anglia, Lufa 3 being a catch-all category for occurrences of this name in DB and Lufa 4 being a moneyer in Shaftesbury in the late tenth century.  A further instance is the Lufa recorded as the father of a witness to a Devon manumission in c.1045 (Pelteret 1990: 115), and there are also two entries in the PASE corpus for the feminine form Lufu.  This limited evidence suggests a name that was extremely rare but in use throughout southern England.

Bibliography

Pelteret 1990: A. E. Pelteret, Catalogue of English Post-Conquest Vernacular Documents (Woodbridge, 1990)

M. Redin, Studies on Uncompounded Personal Names in Old English (Uppsala, 1919)

von Feilitzen 1937: O. von Feilitzen, The Pre-Conquest Personal Names of Domesday Book (Uppsala, 1937)

Forms of the name

Spellings in Domesday Book: Lofe, Lofus

Spellings in Exon: Louus

Forms in modern scholarship:

  von Feilitzen head forms: Lufa

  Phillimore edition: Lufa

  Alecto edition: Lufa

Distribution map of property and lordships associated with this name in DB

List of property and lordships associated with this name in DB

Holder 1066

Shire Phil. ref. Vill DB Spelling Holder 1066 Lord 1066 Tenant-in-Chief 1086 1086 Subtenant Fiscal Value 1066 Value 1086 Value Conf. Show on Map
Devon 35,17 Lovacott Lofe Lufa 'of Lovacott' - Roald the dubbed - 0.13 0.13 0.21 B Map
Totals