Banning
A surname most likely from an old personal name or place-name root, with early English and Germanic links.
The #9,458 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 89,752 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The historical evidence is a bit mixed, but the surname is usually treated as coming from an older personal-name form rather than from the modern English verb ban. One dictionary connects it with an early tribal or patronymic form, while another links it to a Scandinavian word meaning a home or dwelling; both point to an old name-formation rather than a descriptive nickname. In practice, this means the surname likely began as a hereditary family name built from a personal name, local term, or both.
History
The name appears in English records and is found in later regional and emigrant contexts. Nineteenth-century surname writers also associated it with forms found in Germanic and Scandinavian naming traditions, which may explain why it turns up in more than one spelling tradition. It is uncommon in the modern United States, but established enough to have a long documentary trail.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
One 19th-century source explicitly places Banning among surnames with Germanic-style variants, showing how closely scholars linked it to older continental naming patterns.
From the historical record
“king's standard-bearer. BANNING. Baaning, Danish, a home, a dwelling. BANNISTER. The keeper of a bath; from the French lain, a bath. BANT. (Welsh.) A high place; Bant-Ue. BANTA. (Gaelic.) Local. From Beaunta, hills, mountains. BANVARD. (Cor. Br.) Local. From ban, a mount, hill, or high ground; and vard, a rampart…”
— An Etymological Dictionary of Family and Christian Names