The Origin and Meaning of the Rudy Surname

The following research pertains to a Rudy ancestor (i.e., Janos (John) Rudy) that resided in northeast Slovakia in the early 20th Century. 

The investigation relied on numerous historical records, documented movement of peoples through Europe, old language dictionaries and Y-DNA testing to develop a hypothesis on the origin and meaning of the subject Root Ancestor’s surname. The hypothesis is that a Rudi ancestor migrated west from Central Europe to territory that was proximate to present day eastern Germany (perhaps within the current confines of the Free State of Saxony, Germany), and likely belonged to the Wendish culture (i.e., Polobian Tribe) through 800-900s CE. In the late 900s CE, the Germans, under King Otto I, subsequently conquered and assimilated the Wends. 

Rudi ancestors remained in eastern German territory through sometime within the 1200-1500s CE, and thereafter a descendant embarked to Upper Hungary/Slovakia and settled in the Košice/Kaschau/Kassa region (Košice). In the 1500s CE, the Rudi’s descendants may have departed Košice due to incursions by the Ottoman Empire into Hungary (which resulted in a movement of Hungarians into southern Slovakia displacing southern tier Germanic populations). The Rudi descendants followed other Germanic populations into northern Slovakia and eventually settled in Papin sometime between 1500 - 1700 CE. In this line, the Rudi surname appears to be of Germanic origin, referring to someone with rubicund complexion.