Holland
A surname that can mean someone from Holland, but in England it is often also a local name from places called Holland or Holand.
The #305 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 3,011 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Holland is usually explained as a locational surname. In some cases it likely identified a person who came from the Low Countries, especially Holland in the modern Netherlands. In England, however, the name also appears very early as a place-based surname from localities called Holand or Holland, so not every bearer has the same origin. The family-name forms were later fixed in the spelling Holland.
History
The name was borne by an old English gentry family, and medieval records show it in English counties long before modern surname spellings stabilized. Because of that early native use, the surname became common in England independently of the Dutch place-name sense. In later centuries it also fit naturally as an ethnic surname for immigrants from Holland or the Netherlands.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Medieval records show the name in England with the prefix de, which was often used for people identified by place of origin rather than by a hereditary surname.
From the historical record
“in H.R. HOLLAND. It has been stated on the authority of George of Croylaud, who wrote an account of the family in 1550, that the noble and knightly race of this name could trace themselves backwards thirteen gene- rations beyond the Norman Conquest ! For 13 we should probably read 3 ; and there is a more credible…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom