I asked my best friend, who is a [name_f]French[/name_f] speaker & lives in [name_f]France[/name_f], and this is what she said:
[name_f][/name_f]“Devereaux begins with the prefix de-, which signifies that the name originally came from the surname ‘de Vereaux’. [name_f]French[/name_f] surnames that begin with de- mean that the person with that name was a noble from that region (the commune of Vereaux).
[name_f][/name_f]I guess I could see the ‘riverbank’ meaning if you literally break down the word: ‘de’ meaning of, ‘vers’ meaning towards, and ‘eaux’ meaning water, but ‘eaux’ is also a super common plural suffix as well, so the previous explanation of the meaning would be the most straightforward.”