Dickens

Meaning

Dickens began as an English patronymic surname. In the excerpted Bardsley material, it is grouped with other names ending in -kins/-kins, and the note says that Dickin and Deccon got mixed into Dickens; the deeper root is Dick, a familiar short form of Richard. So the name’s sense is essentially “descendant of Dick” or “son of Richard.”

Origin

Fun fact

The surname became especially famous through the novelist Charles Dickens, which is why it can feel more like a literary name than a given name.