Large is an English surname, with variants including, but not limited to Lardge, Lurge, and Larg. Its meaning is variable, though it may derive from the Norman French adjective, large (meaning "generous" or "big" ), as it is found in the surname "le Large" in English records dating back as far as the 13th century. Harrison's work on English surnames gives the following: "LARGE (adjectival: French, Latin) BIG; GENEROUS abundant, liberal]"
He gives an early citation for the name: Austin Belz from the Hundred Rolls, a reference dating to 1273.
He also provides a quotation showing the word in its older sense of generous, full, liberal or ample in its literary context:
So large of yift and free was she (from Chaucer's Romance of the Rose I168)
Another variant surname, "de Large", appears to be continental European rather than English in origin.
Henry Brougham Guppy's survey circa 1881, based on local British directories, places Large as a surname local to North Wiltshire, and considers it to have particular prevalence among yeoman farmers.(Guppy, 1890)
According to the International Genealogical Index, the surname is also found in many other English counties; in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and other English language countries; in France and Germany, and, more rarely, in the Scandinavian countries. Large is also found in Latin America countries such as Colombia where all families surnamed Large are related.
People with the name Large, or one of its variants, include:
Read more about Large: People
Famous quotes containing the word large:
“There is nothing so difficult to marry as a large nose.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“A large city cannot be experientially known; its life is too manifold for any individual to be able to participate in it.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“... one of the blind spots of most Negroes is their failure to realize that small overtures from whites have a large significance ... I now realize that this feeling inevitably takes possession of one in the bitter struggle for equality. Indeed, I share it. Yet I wonder how we can expect total acceptance to step full grown from the womb of prejudice, with no embryo or infancy or childhood stages.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 1, ch. 10 (1962)