Welland

English

Etymology

No definite suggestion can be made about the origin of the placename in Worcestershire; perhaps from the Old English unattested personal name *Wēna + land (“land”).

Proper noun

Welland (countable and uncountable, plural Wellands)

1. (uncountable) A placename:
   1. A river in Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire, which flows into the Wash, a large bay on the North Sea.
      • 2021 October 6, John Hillier, “Harringworth's magical viaduct”, in RAIL, number 941, pages 36–37:

        It must have been the magnetism of the viaduct that towers over the village of Harringworth, and which crosses the flood plain of the River Welland on the border of Rutland and Northamptonshire, which drew my family to living close by when we moved to Britain's smallest county in the early 1990s.

   2. A village and civil parish (served by Little Malvern and Welland Parish Council) in Malvern Hills district, Worcestershire, England (OS grid ref SO7940).
   3. A river in southern Ontario, Canada, which joins the Niagara River and was named after the English river.
   4. A city on the Welland River in Niagara regional municipality, Ontario.
   5. An unincorporated community in Mendota Township, LaSalle County, and Brooklyn Township, Lee County, Illinois, United States.
   6. A suburb of Adelaide, in the City of Charles Sturt, South Australia, named after the English village.
2. (countable) A habitational surname from Old English.

Derived terms

• Weston by Welland

Statistics

• According to the 2010 United States Census, Welland is the 127494^th most common surname in the United States, belonging to 134 individuals. Welland is most common among White (96.27%) individuals.

References

• Survey of English Place-Names

Further reading

• Hanks, Patrick, editor (2003), “Welland”, in Dictionary of American Family Names, volume 3, New York City: Oxford University Press, →ISBN.

Anagrams

• Wandell, ellwand