Geneanet > Resources > Family Names > KING

Origin and popularity of the name KING

Origin

King : 1: English: nickname from Middle English kingking’ (Old English cyning cyng) perhaps acquired by someone with kingly qualities or as a pageant name by someone who had acted the part of a king or had been chosen as the master of ceremonies or ‘king’ of an event such as a tournament festival or folk ritual. In North America the surname King has absorbed several European cognates and equivalents with the same meaning for example German König (see Koenig) and Küng French Roy Slovenian Croatian or Serbian Kralj Polish Krol. It is also very common among African Americans. It is also found as an artificial Jewish surname.2: English: occasionally from the Middle English personal name King originally an Old English nickname from the vocabulary word cyning cyng ‘king’.3: Irish: adopted for a variety of names containing the syllable rí (which means ‘king’ in Irish).4: Native American: loose translation into English (and shortening) of a personal name such as Cheyenne Vehoeso ‘Little Chief’ which is from a diminutive of veho ‘chief’. See also Chief.5: Chinese: variant Romanization of the surname 金 possibly based on the Foochow dialect spoken in Fuzhou in Fujian province see Jin 1.6: Chinese: Cantonese form of the surnames 景 荊 敬 and 經 also variant Romanization of the surnames 井 see Jing 1-4 and 6.7: Chinese: possibly from Cantonese form of the Chinese name 敬 (meaning ‘esteem respect’) a monosyllabic personal name or part of a disyllabic personal name of some early Chinese immigrants in the US.

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Source : DAFN2 : Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition, ©2022 by Patrick Hanks and Oxford University Press
FANBI : The Oxford Dictionary if Family Names in Britain and Ireland, ©2016, University of the West of England

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Last name frequency

Geographic distribution of the 491,780 individuals with the name KING on Geneanet.

 

Most found places for the name KING:

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    cartercousins2022
    (2,810 individuals)
    lucasjunq
    (2,642 individuals)
    pamunkey2023
    (2,180 individuals)
    jhgarner
    (2,148 individuals)

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    Variants of name KING

    KYNGE KINGE KINK