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Scottish: habitational name from any of various places called from their situation on a river named with Gaelic dubh ‘dark black’ + glas ‘stream’ (a derivative of glas ‘blue’). There are several localities in Scotland and Ireland so named but the one from which the surname is derived in most if not all cases is Douglas in Lanarkshire 20 miles south of Glasgow the original stronghold of the influential Douglas family and their retainers.
Source: Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition, 2022