Below is a transcript of an article from The Seattle Times sometime in 1981. This information was provided to me by Keith Riggs (son of Dorothy Riggs, sister of Arthur Karl Frost).
Frost has Nordic origin
by Ven Pitoni
Syndicated columnistFrost is one of those names which, like Snow, Winter(s), Summer(s), Rain(es), Fog(g), and many others, are derived directly from the elements or physical appearances around us.
How or when such names were first applied to men is unknown. But it is a fact that Frost was once a very popular Scaninavian personal or baptismal name, which was early introduced into England in the various Nordic invasions of that country.
It signifies 'the son of Frost' or 'descendant of Frost.' The name was originally given to a child born on a frosty day or about the time of frost. The Welsh "Ffrost," however, means a brag. Maybe this came about from how fathers felt when their first boy-child was born?
In Scandinavian folk-lore a mischievous dwarf named Frost is a central figure. Our nursery hero, "Jack Frost," who later came into familiar usage in connection with the nip of winter weather, may be derived from that source. The English fontal names Christmas and Nowell, referring to the season of birth, arose in the same way.
Frost occurs as a Scandinavian name in the Saxon; also the diminutives Frostick and Frostman. One Alwin Forst was a tenant in County Hants before Domesday (1085-86). His name by a slight and common transposition became Frost. Many Frosts are recorded in the Hundred Rolls of England (1247).
The name Frost has been established in Norfolk ever since the 13th Century, when numerous Frosts resided there. In the 15th and 16th Centuries, Frost was a common name among the Norfolk clerics. The name is also popular now in other parts of England, particularly in Derbyshire and Somerset.
The popular homes of 237 heads of Frost, Fraust and Frostt families in Colonial America were Massachussetts with 66 homesteads, New York with 50 and Maine with 43. The average Frost family then (1790) had 5.7 persons. There are more than 65 Frost families in the Seattle area. The town of Frostburg in Allegany County, Maryland, was named for one family of Frosts who owned the land.
An early American progenitor of this family was Edmund Frost (1610-1672), son of Rev. John Frost of Norfolk, England. He came from Ipswich in the ship Great Hope to Cambridge, Mass., in 1635, where he became a freeman the following year and later ruling elder of the Shepard Church. He married (1st) Thomasine ---; his second wife was Mary ---; and his third was the widow of Robert Daniels.
An even earlier settler was Nicholas Frost who arrived in 1632 and lived most of his life in Kittery, Me., with his wife Bertha Cadwalla.
William Frost is said to have come from County Nottingham, England, when advanced in years; and settled in Fairfield, Conn., in 1639, where he died six years later. His son Daniel, who was born in England, settled in Connecticut. But he later moved to Bankside, Long Island, N.Y., on the east side of Frost Point. He married Elizabeth, daughter of John and Ann Barlow, of Fairfield, Conn., who bore him eight children.
The coat-of-arms illustrated here [similar, but different from the coat-of-arms displayed in this web site - may be the difference noted later in this article] is used by the descendants of Capt. William Frost, who settled at Stamford, Conn., and then New York in 1751. At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War he emigrated to St. John, New Brunswick, Canada.
A different family emblem is used by the descendants of the immigrant Edmund Frost of Massachusetts, which includes the motto "Ma force d'en haut." This when translated from the French, means: "My strength is from above."
The trefoil, or three-leaved symbol shown in the shield (3), appears frequently in the history of heraldry. It also is the shamrock, the floral device of Ireland, but apparently in the Frost coat-of-arms, it bears no Gaelic influence. It signifies perpetuity and can be interpreted as "the just man shall conquer."
The two sprigs of laurel circling the man's head at the top of the crest were considered in ancient times as antidotes for poison and were used as tokens of peace and friendship. [ed. - It is my understanding that the various embellishments around the actual "shield" are not a part of the formal coat-of-arms. The coat-of-arms that I believe to be ours is often shown with a suit of armor helmet, not a man with two sprigs of laurel circling his head. If this is the primary difference noted above, then I would submit that they are really the same.]
(Copyright, 1981, Ven Pitoni) Address comments and questions to: What's In A Name, c/o Newsroom, The Seattle Times, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, Wa 98111.
Last revised January 2, 1999.