An English surname, Atwood comes from the Old and Middle English terms ‘atte’ and ‘wudu’ which referred to the edge of the woods. Variations in spelling Atwood include Athwood, Attwood, Atwode and Attewood. In England the vast majority of Atwood families lived in the southeast portion. They were from Essex, Kent, Middlesex, Surry, Hampshire and the city of London. The Scottish county of Angus has the majority of Atwood families. Within the United States the earliest Atwood families settled in Virginia and Massachusetts. Over they years they resettled in New York, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, Maine, Connecticut, Texas and California. Famous: Rev. George Atwood (18th century inventor of the Atwood machine for mathematics), Casey Lee Atwood (professional race car driver), Calvin W. Atwood (author), Donna Atwood (champion figure skater in 1941), Margaret Atwood (a poet and fiction novelist from Canada) and Calvin G. Atwood (a flight instructor during World War II, teaching women to be pilots when his plane crashed in 1943).