Variations include Addison, Adds, Addy, Ade, Ades, Adey, Adie, Ady, Adye, Addey, Aday, Addee and Adkins. The name is almost certainly of Anglo-Saxon descent spreading to Ireland, Scotland and Wales where it can be found in mediaeval manuscripts.
It is generally considered that the name Adey is a pet name for Adam or that it means the son of Adam but English Surnames by Robert Ferguson (published 1858) suggests that the name comes from Ad, the Anglo-Saxon word for a funeral pyre. Ida, the Saxon King of Bernicia in 547, had a son named Adda.
Some sources say that the name originated in Yorkshire, this is probably because one early record which survives is a poll tax record, from 1379, for Matilda Addy in the West Riding of Yorkshire.
In Scotland a William Adison was rector of Luss in 1370 and a Gilbert Filius Ade was a tenant of the Douglases in the Barony of Kylkoucho in 1376.
Hovendens summary of the Visitation of Kent taken in the years 1619-1621 includes a pedigree which begins with John de Greet who was living in Doddington, Kent in 1352. John's grandson Walter de Greet assumed the name of Adye.
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