ROY OLIPHANT

Originally a Scottish name, representing an Anglicized spelling of the Gaelic nickname Ruadh ‘red’. It has since spread to other parts of the English-speaking world, where it is often reanalysed as Old French roy ‘king’ (compare Leroy).

English, Scottish, French, and German: from Middle English, Old French, Middle High German olifant ‘elephant’ (medieval Latin olifantus, from classical Latin elephantus, Greek elephas, genitive elephantos). The circumstances in which this word was applied as a surname are not clear. It may have been a nickname for a large, lumbering individual, or a metonymic occupational name for a worker in ivory, or a habitational name from a house distinguished by the sign of an elephant.