Where the Edwards name comes from

Edwards is son of Edward, and Edward is Anglo-Saxon to the core: Eadweard, from ead, wealth or fortune, and weard, a guardian. The name carries the sense of someone who guards prosperity. It was everywhere in Anglo-Saxon England and then nearly vanished from the upper classes under the Normans, until Henry III revived it by naming his firstborn after Edward the Confessor. Edwards is the 14th most common surname in Wales, which is where that -s ending did most of its work.