Bergin
An Irish surname, usually from an older Gaelic personal name associated with the Byrne/Beirne family-name cluster.
The #8,291 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 77,264 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The historical sources point Bergin to an Irish Gaelic source rather than to an English place-name. Woulfe groups it with forms such as Bergin, Berrigan, Berigin, and Berreen under a Gaelic name written in his system as O h- forms, indicating an Irish clan or patronymic origin. The exact underlying Gaelic form is obscured by OCR noise in the excerpts, but the surname clearly belongs to the Irish name family that also produced Byrne, Beirne, and related spellings.
History
Bergin is recorded in Irish surname studies as a distinctly Irish name, and it appears in the 19th- and early-20th-century census and county lists used by Matheson. In modern usage it is found in Ireland and among Irish diaspora communities, especially in English-language records where Gaelic spellings were Anglicized in several different ways. The name seems to have been relatively localized in Ireland compared with more widespread surnames like Byrne.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Bergin is one of several Irish surnames that can show up in records with multiple close spellings, a common result of English clerks trying to render Gaelic names phonetically.
From the historical record
“Berbidge. See Burbage Bergan, Bergen. See Burgoyne Bergin. See Burgoyne Berkeley. A loc. n., Glos. Berrall. See Burrell Berrett. See Barret Barrett in Roll of Battell Abbey.”
— British Family Names: their origin and meaning (2nd ed.)