CODY MILLER

Transferred use of the Irish surname, an Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Cuidighthigh ‘descendant of Cuidightheach’ (originally a byname for a helpful person), or of Mac Óda ‘son of Óda’ (a personal name of uncertain origin). Use as a given name in the United States especially has been at least in part inspired by William Frederick Cody (1846–1917), better known as ‘Buffalo Bill’, the showman of the Wild West.

English and Scottish: occupational name for a miller. The standard modern vocabulary word represents the northern Middle English term, an agent derivative of mille ‘mill’, reinforced by Old Norse mylnari (see Milner). In southern, western, and central England Millward (literally, ‘mill keeper’) was the usual term. The American surname has absorbed many cognate surnames from other European languages, for example French Meunier, Dumoulin, Demoulins, and Moulin; German Mueller; Dutch Molenaar; Italian Molinaro; Spanish Molinero; Hungarian Molnár; Slavic Mlinar, etc.