Darling
A surname that began as a nickname for a beloved or favored person.
The #1,904 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 16,354 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Darling comes from the Old English word dearling, meaning “beloved” or “favorite,” formed from dear plus a diminutive ending. In early English it could function as an affectionate term for a child or cherished young person, and later it was sometimes used as a personal description. The surname most likely grew from this nickname use rather than from a place-name.
History
One 19th-century source notes an early Anglo-Saxon example of Dyrling as a designation for a noble youth, and later genealogists treated the name as a hereditary surname from the Middle Ages onward. It appears in medieval English records in several spellings, including Darlvng and Derlyng. The name is now established across the English-speaking world, especially in Britain and the United States.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The same affectionate word that gave us the surname also survives in everyday English as the noun and term of address “darling.”
From the historical record
“CO. Derby. DARLING iElfmar Dyrling, a noble youth, is mentioned in the Saxon Chro- nicle. Mr. Kemble says, " chjrlbm and c\l(l, (darling and child) are terms used to de- note the young nobles of a house, perhaps exclusively the eldest son, in whom all ex- pectation rests." The difficulty is, to ac- count for such…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom