Olifant meaning | Last name Olifant origin

A variant of Oliphant. One who dealt in ivory; one who played a horn, a trumpeter; dweller at the sign of the elephant; a corruption of Oliford or Holiford.

Olifant is variant of Oliphant. Kelham and Halliwell give olifaunt, Anglo-Norman, an elephant.
"The scarlet cloth doth make the bull to feare;
The cullour white the ollivant doth shunne." Deloney's Strange Histories.
And Chaucer, in his Rime of Sire Thopas, says:-
"There came a gret geaunt;
His name was sire Oliphaunt,
A perilous man of dede.”, said the Tyrwhitt.

Tyrwhitt considers the word to mean Elephant, which he thinks a suitable name for a giant. It is remarkable, however, that in Anglo-Saxon olfend signifies a camel, and therefore that useful animal may, equally with the more ponderous brute, assert its claim to the honour of having surnamed this family. Some of the Oliphants bear an elephant's head as their crest; but this may be a mere blunder, like that of the Moyles, whose coat is a mule, whereas a 'moile' in medieval English signifies, like the Latin jumentum any labouring beast, though especially a horse or mare.

Variant form of Oliphant. This Scottish name appears to be corrupted from the local De Oliphard, which is found in the XII century. In 1142 David de Oliphard accompanied King David I in his descent upon England. It would appear that the spelling Oliphant began early in the XIV century.