Origin and popularity of the name CAIN

Origin

Cain : 1: Manx: from Gaelic Mac Catháin ‘son of Cathan’ see Kane. The personal name literally meant ‘warrior’ a derivative of Manx cah ‘battle’ (Irish cath).2: English: variant of Cane.3: English (of Norman origin): habitational name from the city of Caen in Calvados France.4: Catalan: Castilianized form of Caí (see Cai).5: French (Caïn): from the Biblical name Caïn (Hebrew Qayin) ‘Cain’ probably applied as an unflattering nickname for someone who was considered to be treacherous.

Abel : 1: English German Dutch Danish Norwegian French Spanish and Polish; Slovak (mainly Ábel) and Czech (also Ábel): from the Biblical personal name Abel Slovak Ábel which was used in continental Europe from the sixth century. After the Norman Conquest it was introduced to England and Scotland where it had a brief currency in the 12th and 13th centuries before being revived in England after the Reformation. In the Book of Genesis Abel is a son of Adam murdered by his brother Cain (Genesis 4:1–8). In Christian tradition he is regarded as a representative of suffering innocence. The Hebrew form of the name is Hebel (Latinized as Abel) from a vocabulary word meaning ‘breath’.2: German: from the personal name Abel a pet form of Albrecht.

Cai : 1: Chinese: Mandarin form of the surname 蔡 originally referring to ‘the tortoise used in ancient rituals of divination’ in Chinese: from the placename Cai (蔡) a fief (originally located in Shangcai in Henan province) which was granted to Du also known as Cai Shu (蔡叔) son of the virtuous King Wen of Zhou (1152–1056 BC). Later Cai Shu plotted rebellions and was eventually sent into exile. But his son Hu also known as Cai Zhong (蔡仲) was a revered man and was granted the fief of Cai (蔡) which later became a state during the Spring and Autumn period (770–476 BC). After it was annexed by the state of Chu in 447 BC the name of the state was adopted as a surname.2: Catalan (Girona and Alicante; Caí): possibly from the Biblical personal name Caín ‘Cain’.3: Spanish: unexplained.4: Italian (Tuscany): from old Tuscan cai ‘house’ applied as a topographic name a habitational name from any place called with this word.5: Vietnamese (Cái): from the Chinese surname 盖 see Gai 1.

Enoch : English Welsh African American and African (mainly Nigeria): from the Middle English and Old French personal name Enoc (Enoch in the King James Bible) a Latinized rendering of Hebrew Ḥanok ‘experienced’ or ‘dedicated’. It was the name of a son of Cain and the father of Methuselah in the Book of Genesis (4:17 and 5:22) and the name of the author of three Books of the Apocrypha. As a popular personal name among post-Reformation Nonconformists it also gave rise to some late surname formations in Wales. The surname is relatively common in Wales but much rarer in England where it is concentrated on the Warwickshire/Oxfordshire border usually in the form Enock.

Lingen : 1: German; Dutch (Van Lingen): habitational name from Lingen on the Ems river in Lower Saxony Westphalia and the former East Prussia.2: English (Herefordshire): habitational name from a place in Herefordshire so named from an old British stream name Welsh llyn ‘water’ + possibly cain ‘clear beautiful’.

More

Subject to the Terms and Conditions of Ancestry

Last name frequency

Geographic distribution of the 65,060 individuals with the name CAIN on Geneanet.

This last name in the family trees

See below the Geneanet members' family trees which contain the last name CAIN