FOX

(male) Generally a transferred use of the surname, which derives as a nickname from the animal (Old English fox). This may originally have been given to a cunning person, or to someone with red hair, or for some other anecdotal reason. Use as a given name may have originated in honour of George Fox (1624–91), founder of the Quaker movement. In Ireland it has also been used as an English translation of the Gaelic nickname Sionnach ‘fox’. As a Jewish name it has been used as an Anglicized form of the Yiddish nickname fiksl ‘fox’.