Recorded in a number of forms including Taffery, Taffrey, Tevry, Tiffory, Toffery and Tuffrey, the latter being the most popular spelling, this is an English surname. It is almost certainly locational, and if so originates from either the village of Tuffley in the county of Gloucester, or from a now 'lost' medieval village, possibly in the same region. 'Lost' villages are a feature of the British and Irish listings, and it is estimated that as many as five thousand surnames may derive from places, of which the only memory in the 20th century, is the surname itself, often recorded as with this one, in a wide variety of spellings. 'Lost' villages occured for several reasons such as plague and war, but most often, because of changes in farming practice, particularly the introduction of sheep farming from the 12th century. When this occured, tenants were often driven off their lands, and forced to seek homes elsewhere. In so doing, they took or were given, as their surnames, the name of their former home. Spelling being at best erratic lead to the development of 'sounds like' spellings. The origination is probably the Olde English pre 7th centuy 'Tuffa - leah' meaning the farm of a man called Tuffa. Examples of the name recordings include: Elizabeth Tevry who married Walter Webley at English Bicknor, a village in Gloucestershire, on April 1st 1717, and John Tuffrey, who married Martha Truscell at the church of St Martins in the Field, Westminster, on November 20th 1791.

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