Dickens
Usually a surname from Richard, meaning “son of Dick,” though some early forms were influenced by related nicknames and diminutive forms.
The #1,990 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 17,036 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Dickens is generally treated as a patronymic from Dick, a familiar short form of Richard. In medieval English records, related forms such as Digon, Dikes, Dickens, Dickson, and Dickinson appear as surname variants built from the same nickname base. Some older writers also linked Dickens with diminutive or pet-name forms, but the core idea is that it grew out of Richard-based nickname usage.
History
The name is well attested in English records by the later Middle Ages, and historical surname dictionaries group it with the large family of Richard-derived surnames. It is most strongly associated with England, especially southern and eastern counties where many short-form nickname surnames became hereditary. The surname later spread widely in the English-speaking world, helped by migration and, of course, by the fame of the novelist Charles Dickens.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older surname dictionaries note that Dickens belongs to the same nickname family as Dick, Dicks, Dickson, and Dickinson.
From the historical record
“DICK. See Richard. DICKENS. The same as Digons, which see. DICKER. A district in Sussex, formerly an extensive waste. Ate Dykere occurs temp. Edw. III. among the Barons of the Cinque Ports, and le Dykere some years earlier, in the same county. DICKESOX. See Richard. DICKIiSTS. See Digons and Ricliard.”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom