Doll
A surname with several possible origins, including a nickname from “doll,” a pet form of a given name, or a short form of place-based names.
The #3,646 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 31,669 Americans shares it.
Etymology
This surname is not easy to pin to one source. In English records it may relate to the word doll, originally a pet name or term of endearment, but historical surname writers also treat forms like Doll as short forms of older personal names in German and Dutch contexts. In some cases it may even be a reduced form of a place-name surname rather than a direct nickname.
History
Historical surname dictionaries connect Doll with several different surname families, including German and Dutch bearers and English spellings that overlap with other names. Because the form is short and common, it could arise independently in more than one place. That makes it a classic example of a surname with multiple possible origins rather than a single clear pedigree.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Surname writers note that Doll can overlap with place-name surnames as well as nickname surnames, so two people with the same spelling may have unrelated family histories.
From the historical record
“One ; Darling (the mod. puppet) . [A.-Fr. . popet (M.Ft. poupette, a baby; and cp. Fr. , poupie, a doll), f. 'LsX. pup-us, a little boy, pup-a, a little girl, doll ; with dim. suff. -ei\ In Frahce, Popet aud Popot are about , equifrequent.”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)