Eden
A surname most likely taken from place-names in Durham, England, though it also evokes the biblical garden name.
The #4,736 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 41,227 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The main surname origin is locational, from places such as Castle Eden or Little Eden in County Durham. Lower specifically says the family is believed to have taken its name from one of these Durham places, and that the pedigree can be traced back to the early 13th century. Separately, the familiar word Eden comes through the Bible from Hebrew and entered English as the name of the Garden of Eden, but the surname itself is usually explained as a place-name rather than as a direct biblical nickname.
History
Lower notes that the Eden family was already established in Durham before the late 14th century, which supports an English local origin. The surname also appears in later British and American records, and the name was known enough in the United States for Bardsley and Lower to mention it in passing. Because Eden is also a major biblical and literary word, some bearers may have been influenced by that association, but the historical surname is chiefly local.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Lower mentions both Eden and Edenborough as family names in American records, showing that the name had already crossed the Atlantic by the 19th century.
From the historical record
“EDE. See Eade. EDEN. Though the pedigree is not traced higher than the year U13, there is no reason to doubt that the name is local and derived from either Castle Eden or Little Eden in the county of Durham, where, as jMr. Courthope asserts, the family were resident for several generations prior to the close of the…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom