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Curtis or Curtiss is a common English given name and surname of Anglo-Norman origin, deriving from the Old French curteis (Modern French courtois) which was in turn derived from Latin cohors. Nicknames include Curt, Curty and Curtie.

Wikidata facts

Instance of
name
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language of work or name
English language
native label
Curtis
writing system
Latin script
different from
Curtis
Cologne phonetics
4728
Soundex
C632
Caverphone
KTS1111111
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Curtis or Curtiss is a common English given name and surname of Anglo-Norman origin, deriving from the Old French curteis (Modern French courtois) which was in turn derived from Latin cohors. Nicknames include Curt, Curty and Curtie.

The name means "polite, courteous, or well-bred". It is a compound of curt- "court" and -eis "-ish". The spelling u to render [u] in Old French was mainly Anglo-Norman and Norman, when the spelling o [u] was the usual Parisian French one, Modern French ou [u]. -eis is the Old French suffix for -ois, Western French (including Anglo-Norman) keeps -eis, simplified to -is in English. The word court shares the same etymology but retains a Modern French spelling, after the orthography had changed.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Curtis” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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