Godfrey

Godfrey is a given name and a surname. The given name is derived from the Old French Godefroy, a name composed of the elements: the first being either god ("god") or gōd ("good"); the second being fred ("peace"). The name was brought to England by settlers from Normandy, the Low Countries, and France.^[1] The name is rendered Goiridh and Goraidh in Scottish Gaelic.^[2]

Given name

medieval

• Godfrey of Bouillon (1060–1100), leader of the First Crusade
• Godfrey of Cambrai (11th century), prior and poet
• Godfrey of Chichester (11th century), bishop of Chichester
• Godred Crovan (died 1095), King of Dublin and the Isles
• Gofraid mac Amlaíb meic Ragnaill (died 1075), King of Dublin

modern

• Godfrey (comedian) (born 1969), stage name of Godfrey Danchimah
• Godfrey Cambridge (1933-1976), American comedian
• Godfrey Kiprotich (born 1964), Kenyan distance runner
• Godfrey Reggio (born 1939), American director of experimental documentary films
• Godfrey Zaunbrecher (born 1946), American football player
• Thomas Godfrey Evans (1920–1999), English cricketer

Surname

• Albert Earl Godfrey (1890–1982), Canadian First World War flying ace
• Ambrose Godfrey (1660–1741), phosphorus manufacturer
• Arthur Godfrey (1903–1983), American radio and television broadcaster
• Ben Godfrey (born 1998), English professional footballer
• Bob Godfrey (1921–2013), English animator
• Brian Godfrey (1940–2010), Welsh footballer
• Dan Godfrey (1868–1939), British bandmaster and composer
• Daniel Strong Godfrey (b. 1949), American composer
• DeWitt Godfrey (born 1960), an American modernist sculptor
• Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey (1621-1678), magistrate murdered in 1678
• Frederick Race Godfrey (1828-1910), public figure and politician in Victoria, Australia
• Isidore Godfrey (1900–1977), conductor
• Paul Godfrey (born 1939), former president and CEO of the Toronto Blue Jays
• Richard Godfrey (disambiguation), multiple people
• Robert John Godfrey (born 1947), British composer, pianist and founder member of The Enid
• Steve Godfrey (disambiguation), multiple people
• Thomas J. Godfrey, (1831–1906), American legislator
• Tommy Godfrey (1916–1984), British actor
• Tony Godfrey (footballer) (born 1939), English football goalkeeper who played for Southampton, Aldershot and Rochdale

Places

• Godfrey, Illinois, a US village
• Godfrey, Kansas
• Godfrey, Ontario, a Canadian community

Fiction

• Glorious Godfrey, often known just by the name "Godfrey", a DC Comics supervillain
• Lord Vincent Godfrey, a character from the Warcaft universe, who appears in the Worgen quest line
• Private Charles Godfrey, a character from Dad's Army.
• Godfrey St. Peter, the protagonist of Willa Cather's 1925 novel, The Professor's House.

See also

• Geoffrey (given name), a possible English/French equivalent
• Godfried, a Dutch equivalent
• Gottfried, a German equivalent

Citations

1. Hanks; Hardcastle; Hodges (2006) p. 112.
2. Mark (2003) p. 715.

References

• Hanks, P; Hardcastle, K; Hodges, F (2006) [1990]. A Dictionary of First Names. Oxford Paperback Reference (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-861060-1.
• Mark, C (2003). The Gaelic-English Dictionary. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-203-27706-6.