This surname originated in Scotland, and is now most common in Ulster, particularly in counties Antrim and Down. Two separate derivations are claimed for the name. The most commonly accepted links the name with the Scottish island of Bute in the Firth of Clyde , in Gaelic Bod; the Gaelic for "of Bute" is Boid. Another derivation connects the family with the Stewarts, claiming that the descent is from Robert, son of Simon, one of the Norman founders of the Scottish Stewarts. Robert was known as Buidhe, meaning "yellow", from the colour of his hair, and this is taken as the origin of the surname. Whatever the truth, the earliest recorded bearers of the name certainly used the Norman prefix de. These were Robertus de Boyde of Irvine and Alan de Bodha of Dumfries, both living in the early thirteenth century.