Greenwood as a Baby Name. Meaning and Origin of Greenwood

What is the meaning of the name Greenwood ?

The baby name Greenwood is a Unisex name , 2 syllables long and is pronounced /ˈɡriːnwʊd/ (GREEN-wood).

Greenwood is English in Origin.

Greenwood is an English toponymic surname-turned-given name meaning "green wood" or "verdant forest," from Old English grene + wudu. In medieval English, the greenwood denoted the living forest of folklore and song (think Robin Hood's haunts and Shakespeare's "Under the greenwood tree"), so the name carries connotations of renewal, refuge, and natural vitality.

Found in northern English records from the 13th century, Greenwood identified people who lived by or came from a place so named; it later migrated into first-name use in the 18th and 19th centuries alongside other transferred surnames, especially in Britain and the American South (for example, Choctaw statesman Greenwood LeFlore). Rare today, it reads as a gender-neutral nature name. Historical spellings include Grenewode, Greenwode, and Greenwoode; related cognates are German Greenwald/Grunwald. Informal short forms such as Green or Woody occur. Variant constructions like Green Wood also appear in records, but Greenwood remains the standard modern form.

⚙ Greenwood is an extremely rare name. Across our dataset of national birth registries and international name records, Greenwood appears only 12 times in total — found in 9 countries. If you're considering it, you'd be giving your child a name almost nobody else has.