Brink
A surname usually tied to someone who lived on a brink, bank, slope, or edge.
The #2,989 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 25,767 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Brink is a topographic surname from a word meaning an edge, bank, slope, or margin. In English and related Germanic languages, the same root appears in place-words and landscape terms, so the name would originally have described someone living by a bank or steep boundary. In some cases it may also reflect Dutch or German usage with the same basic sense.
History
The surname is found in several Germanic-speaking areas, including England, the Low Countries, and Germany, and can arise independently in more than one place from the common landscape word. In English records it would typically have been applied to people living near a bank, ridge, or boundary rather than to a family of one single origin. The same root also appears in related surnames and place-names such as Brinklow and similar topographic forms.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The word behind Brink is the same basic landscape idea that can mean a riverbank, slope, or the “brink” of something today.
From the historical record
“I— Ceom Brink mi 1778. Harrie larr Ricbarrli”
— A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames, with special American instances