Lovee History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms

The name Lovee originated with the Anglo-Saxon tribes that once ruled Britain. It is derived from an Old English personal name Lufu which affectionately referred to Love. In this case, the name was a “personal name and pet name [Middle English love, luf(e), Old English lufu, from, love]. Lufu was an A.-Saxon fem. name.” [1]

The surname Lovee was adopted in England after the Norman Conquest of 1066. After the Norman Conquest, the Old English naming system gradually dissolved. Old English names became less common and were replaced by popular continental European names. The earliest surnames in England were found shortly after the Norman Conquest and are of Norman French rather than native English origins. 

However, two other sources disagrees with this generally accepted origin and in “this name relates not to the tender passion, but is an old modification of the French Loup, wolf.” [2] [3]

Early Origins of the Lovee family

The surname Lovee was first found in Oxfordshire, where one of the first records of the family was listed in the Hundredorum Rolls of 1273 as a forename as in Love del Hok. The same rolls lists Alan le Love and Walter Love in Cambridgeshire. [4]

Another source claims “Love is an ancient Kentish surname. Reginald Love held property around Chatham and Rochester in the reign of Henry V. The Loves have long been an old Staplehurst [, Kent] family of gentry; a hundred years since there were several inscriptions to this family, some of them obliterated, in the church and churchyard.” [5]

Up in Scotland, early records there revealed Thomas Lufe who appeared as witness in Glasgow, 1472, and Yhone Luyif was a tenant in the barony of Glasgow, 1521. William Lufe and Ranald Lufe were rebels at the horn in 1534, and John Lufe rendered to Exchequer the accounts of the bailies of the burgh of Renfrew in 1567. [6]

Early History of the Lovee family

This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Lovee research.

Lovee Spelling Variations

One relatively recent invention that did much to standardize English spelling was the printing press. However, before its invention even the most literate people recorded their names according to sound rather than spelling. The spelling variations under which the name Lovee has appeared include Love, Lufe, Luf and others.

Early Notables of the Lovee family (pre 1700)

Distinguished members of the family include Richard Love (1596-1661), an English churchman and academic, Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, member of the Westminster Assembly, and Dean of Ely; Nicholas Love (1608-1682), an English lawyer, one of the Regicides of King Charles I of England, upon the Restoration, he escaped to Switzerlandwhere he died. On the more infamous side, Peter Love (d. 1610), was an English pirate, believed to have been from Lewes, Sussex.

 Migration of the Lovee family to Ireland

Some of the Lovee family moved to Ireland, but this topic is not covered in this excerpt.

 Lovee migration to the United States +

At this time, the shores of the New World beckoned many English families that felt that the social climate in England was oppressive and lacked opportunity for change. Thousands left England at great expense in ships that were overcrowded and full of disease. A great portion of these settlers never survived the journey and even a greater number arrived sick, starving, and without a penny. The survivors, however, were often greeted with greater opportunity than they could have experienced back home. These English settlers made significant contributions to those colonies that would eventually become the United States and Canada. An examination of early immigration records and passenger ship lists revealed that people bearing the name Lovee arrived in North America very early: 

Lovee Settlers in United States in the 19th Century