Where the Ross name comes from

Ross is the Gaelic ros, a promontory or a headland, and it names a place before it names a person. It is the name of a county in the Scottish highlands, Ross and Cromarty, and of a clan, and it came to families from places like Roose in Cumbria and Roos in Yorkshire. Several Norman families in Scotland took the name from Rots in Calvados instead, and in Cornwall it comes from local places built on ros, meaning heathland. There is also an English Ross from Wrose in Shipley, which simply lost its w.