Släkthistoria för Defty
Defty Vad efternamn betyder
perhaps from Middle English *dighti ‘doughty’ and therefore a variant of Doughty especially in the form Daughty also spelled Dafty as the following bearers seem to illustrate. Alternatively from an unrecorded suffixed variant of the Middle English adjective defte dafte ‘meek humble’ or ‘skilful’ (Old English dæfte); compare Daft. This would also explain the variation in the surname forms below but in the absence of any medieval evidence for this word or name this explanation must remain doubtful.
Källa: The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland, 2016
