Rhodes

English (chiefly Yorkshire): topographic name for someone who lived in a clearing in woodland (see Rode 3). This, the most common form of the name, has been influenced in spelling by the English name of the Greek island of Rhodes (Greek Rhodos), with which there is no connection. There is no connection, either, with modern English road (Old English rād ‘riding’), which was not used to denote a thoroughfare until the 16th century.