agee

Agee is a family name that appears in English-speaking countries and is occasionally used as a place name. The surname is generally considered to have Scottish or Irish origins, derived from the Gaelic personal name Aghaidh or from an ancient Norse personal name Ágeir. In Scotland, it was historically recorded in the Highlands and Lowlands, while in Ireland it is found mainly in the province of Ulster. By the nineteenth century it migrated to North America, where it entered the census records in the United States and Canada. In contemporary usage, Agee is most frequently identified with American ancestry, though small communities in Australia and New Zealand also bear the name.

Notable individuals carrying the surname include the American writer Robert A. Agee (1955–2017), who was known for his crime novels set in rural North Carolina; former Major League Baseball pitcher Ron Agee (born 1949), who played for the Toronto Blue Jays in the 1970s; and Grammy-winning country singer Emily Agee, who represented the United States at the 2012 International Song Contest. In academia, the sociologist Margaret M. Agee published influential studies on media literacy in the 1990s. The name also appears in the arts: photographer Charles Agee was famous for his portraits of jazz musicians in the 1960s.

In geographic terms, Agee has been used as a toponym in the United States, with an unincorporated community named Agee in Harrison County, Indiana, and a minor stream called Agee Branch in Virginia. The Agee Transfer Station, a municipal waste facility in Boston, Massachusetts, is named for its donor, philanthropist John Agee. The usage of Agee in other contexts is relatively uncommon; it is occasionally employed as a brand name for specialty manufacturing firms in the Midwest. Within popular culture, the pseudonymous author Alex Agee created the satirical column “Agee’s Gazette,” published in the early 2000s.