Hahn
A German surname that usually means “rooster” or “cock,” and sometimes comes from place-names built with the same word.
The #859 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 7,671 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Hahn is the German word for a rooster or cock, from older Germanic forms such as Old High German hano. As a surname, it was often applied as a nickname, probably to someone thought to be strutting, loud, or cock-like in some way. In some cases it may also be locational, especially where it reflects place-names containing Hahn, though the animal-name sense is the main one.
History
The name is well established in German-speaking areas and also appears in German-American records. Older surname writers regularly glossed Hahn simply as “cock,” and some also noted that it could function as a sobriquet. In a few place-name cases, the surname may have been inherited from a locality rather than directly from the bird-name.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
19th-century surname books often listed Hahn right alongside English surnames like Cock, Cox, and Peacock as the German equivalent of the bird-name surname.
From the historical record
“Hanewell) = the Cock-Spring (spring frequented by the woodcock) [O.E. hana (= Ger. hahn, O.H.Ger. hano) -f- w(i)ell{a, a spring, well] Analogy, in this country and on the Continent, shows that the very rare pers. name Hana is not in question here. The oblique form 'on hanan welle,' 'to the”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)