Goddard

English (of Norman origin) and French: from Godhard, a personal name composed of the Germanic elements gōd ‘good’ or god, got ‘god’ + hard ‘hardy’, ‘brave’, ‘strong’. The name was popular in Europe during the Middle Ages as a result of the fame of St. Gotthard, an 11th-century bishop of Hildesheim who founded a hospice on the pass from Switzerland to Italy that bears his name. This surname and the variant Godard are also borne by Ashkenazic Jews, presumably as an Americanized form of one or more like-sounding Jewish surnames.