Whitchurch

English

Etymology

From Old English hwit + cirice (“white church”), presumably built from whitish stone.

Proper noun

Whitchurch (countable and uncountable, plural Whitchurches)

1. (uncountable) A placename:
   1. A village in Bath and North East Somerset district, Somerset, and a southern suburb of Bristol, England, between Hartcliffe, Hengrove and Knowle (OS grid ref ST6167).
   2. A village in Buckinghamshire, England, formerly in Aylesbury Vale district (OS grid ref SP8020).
   3. A suburban village in Tavistock parish, West Devon district, Devon, England (OS grid ref SX4873).
   4. A civil parish east of the above village, in West Devon district, Devon.
   5. A town and civil parish with a town council in Basingstoke and Deane district, Hampshire, England (OS grid ref SU4648).
   6. A village and civil parish (served by Whitchurch and Ganarew Group Parish Council) in south Herefordshire, England (OS grid ref SO5417).
   7. A market town in Whitchurch Urban parish, north Shropshire, England (OS grid ref SJ5441).
      • 1948 September and October, Canon Roger Lloyd, “The Art and Mystery of the Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 327:

        We lived then in Whitchurch, the Shropshire Whitchurch, which unlike all the half dozen other Whitchurches of England, is a place of no little railway interest.

   8. A civil parish (without a council) in Stratford-on-Avon district, Warwickshire, England (OS grid ref SP2247).
   9. A northern suburb of Cardiff, Wales (OS grid ref ST1580).
   10. A small village in Solva community, west Pembrokeshire, Wales (OS grid ref SM7925).
2. (countable) A habitational surname from Old English.

Derived terms

• Whitchurch-on-Thames
• Whitchurch Rural
• Whitchurch Urban

Statistics

• According to the 2010 United States Census, Whitchurch is the 33645^th most common surname in the United States, belonging to 677 individuals. Whitchurch is most common among White (88.77%) individuals.

Further reading

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