An excerpt from www.HouseOfNames.com archives copyright © 2000 - 2016
The Dalriadan clans of ancient Scotland spawned the ancestors of the Cloyd family. Their name comes from the personal name Leod. The Gaelic form of the surname is Mac Leoid, which means son of Leod, son of Olaf the Black, King of Man and the Northern Isles. Olaf was from a dynasty of Norse Kings, who, for centuries held the Isles. They were in turn descended from King Halfdan the Stingy, a King who was reputed to be descended from the god Frey. Leod held the island of Lewis, the mainland Glenelg and part of Skye in about 1195 AD. It was his two sons who founded the two great branches of the Siol Tormod and the Siol Torquil.
The surname Cloyd was first found in on the Isle of Lewis (Scottish Gaelic: Leòdhas), where the Siol Tormod branch held the territories of Harris, Glenelg and Dunvegan Castle in Skye; while the Siol Torquil branch held Assynt and Cadboll, and the Island of Ramasay. There were no title deeds for these territories as they had been considered possessions of Norway. Yet when King Haakon asserted his authority over the lands in 1263 King Alexander resisted. Although the Scottish King Alexander signed the Treaty of Perth allowing payment of rent to Norway for all these lands, it was never paid and the whole of the western Isles became Scottish possessions.
The medieval practice of spelling according to sound and repeated translation between Gaelic and English created many spelling variations of the same name. Cloyd has been recorded as MacLeod, MacCleod, MacCloud, MacLoud and many more.
This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Cloyd research. Another 515 words (37 lines of text) covering the years 1314, 1597, 1613, 1715, 1745, and 1777 are included under the topic Early Cloyd History in all our PDF Extended History products.
Another 75 words (5 lines of text) are included under the topic Early Cloyd Notables in all our PDF Extended History products.
Descendents of Dalriadan-Scottish families still populate many communities across North America. They are particularly common in Canada, since many went north as United Empire Loyalists at the time of the American War of Independence. Much later, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the highland games and Clan societies that now dot North America sprang up, allowing many Scots to recover their lost national heritage. Some of the first immigrants to cross the Atlantic and come to North America bore the name Cloyd, or a variant listed above:
Cloyd Settlers in United States in the 17th Century
Cloyd Settlers in United States in the 20th Century
The Cloyd Family Crest was acquired from the Houseofnames.com archives. The Cloyd Family Crest was drawn according to heraldic standards based on published blazons. We generally include the oldest published family crest once associated with each surname.
This page was last modified on 15 January 2016 at 14:19.