Geneanet > Resources > Family Names > LYON

Origin and popularity of the name LYON

Origin

Lyon : 1: Scottish English and French: from the personal name Middle English Lyon Old French Leon (from Latin leo ‘lion’ or the cognate Greek leōn; see Leon). Compare Lyall.2: Scottish and English (of Norman origin): habitational name from Lyons-la-Forêt in Eure Normandy. It is unlikely to be from the better-known southern French city of Lyon (see 5 below).3: English and French: nickname from Middle English lioun ‘lion’ (Old English Latin leo) Old French leon perhaps applied to a brave fierce or proud person or one with a shaggy mane of hair. Compare Lion.4: Irish: shortened Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Laighin (see Lane 2).5: French: habitational name from the city of Lyon in south central France (or in some cases from the commune of Lyons-la-Forêt in Eure Normandy; compare 2 above). The name of the city of Lyon is recorded in the 1st century BC as Lugdunum and is from the name of a Celtic god Lug (or this as a personal name from a word meaning ‘brightness’) + dunon ‘hill fort’.6: Altered form of Dutch De Leeuw.

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Source : DAFN2 : Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition, ©2022 by Patrick Hanks and Oxford University Press

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Surname frequency

Geographic distribution of the 234,301 individuals with the name LYON on Geneanet.

 

Most found places for the name LYON:

    This last name in the family trees

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

    tlyons
    (3,807 individuals)
    jcasadev
    (1,147 individuals)
    rwlyon
    (1,095 individuals)
    wbuchanan
    (1,000 individuals)

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    Variants of name LYON

    LIONS LION LYONS