Meaning: Its source is Courtenay, a Norman French name meaning "Domain of Curtius."

Narrative: This is the surname of an aristocratic British family whose ancestors originated in Courtenay in northern France.

That place name is based on a Latin personal name meaning ''short,'' so it was not entirely inappropriate for people to have associated this name with the sound-alike French phrase court nez, meaning ''short nose,'' as they did long after the family had left its ancestral home.