Elkin
A surname most likely from a medieval diminutive or nickname based on the old personal names Ella or Elias.
The #9,125 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 86,290 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The surname Elkin is generally explained as a diminutive formation from an early personal name, most often taken as Ella or Elia/Elias. One line of older scholarship connects it with medieval forms like Elekin, later shortened to Elkin. Another 19th-century proposal linked it to a northern term meaning "Englishman" or to the old Saxon name Ella, but that explanation was already regarded as uncertain by later writers.
History
In medieval records, Elkin appears as a personal name and then as a surname. It has also been associated with the related forms Elkins and Elkinson, which are treated as family-name developments from the same early name-stem. Because the evidence is old and the explanations are not fully consistent, the surname’s exact origin is not completely settled.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Some 19th-century surname writers thought Elkin might even preserve a very old northern label for "Englishman," though that idea was not universally accepted.
From the historical record
“ELIOT. See Elliott. ELKIN. ELIvIXS. ELKINSON. The derivation in Eng. Surn. i. 166, is probably incorrect. Mr. Ferguson has the following observations. " Allkins and Elkin may possibly mean ' Englishman.' So common was AHa or Ella as an early Saxon name, that tlie Northern Scalds familiarly termed Englishmen in…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom