Tough (surname)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tough is an English language surname, with two distinct known origins.
It is predominantly a Scottish name, a toponymic surname ultimately deriving from Scottish Gaelic tulach, "hillock". A variant spelling is Touch. Both are pronounced /tuːx/, tookh: like "took" with a long vowel, the "-gh/-ch" sound the same as in "loch".[1][2] In 1969, The Scots Magazine suggested the name retained its Scottish pronunciation, particularly the "-ch", due to being "sufficiently localised and un-aristocratic to have missed the application of genteel polish."[3] Patrick Hanks described Tough as a variant of surname Tulloch (from places around Dingwall),[1] while George Fraser Black and David Dobson both wrote that it is a toponymic surname in its own right, from the parish of Tough near Alford, Aberdeenshire.[2][4] The surname dates to the 14th century in Aberdeenshire,[4][5] and Dobson noted that it arrived in North America from a transportee in 1652.[4]
It can also be an English name, originating from Middle English togh or tow(e) (Old English tóh)[1][6] as a byname for someone with characteristics of toughness: Hanks referred to being brave and stubborn,[1] and Mark Antony Lower referred to being sturdy and capable of endurance.[7] Traditionally pronounced /toʊ/, toh (a rhyme with "though"), it also has Tow as a variant spelling;[1][6] Clive Upton and William A. Kretzschmar Jr. wrote in the 2017 Routledge Dictionary of Pronunciation that the current pronunciation of the non-Scottish surname is /tʌf/, tuhf: that of modern "tough".[8]
