Israel
A surname taken from the biblical personal name Israel, originally bestowed on Jacob in the Hebrew Bible.
The #3,488 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 30,136 Americans shares it.
Etymology
This surname comes from the biblical name Israel, first given to the patriarch Jacob. The name is traditionally explained as meaning something like 'he struggles with God' or, in older surname books, 'a prince of the strong God' or 'prevailing in the Lord.' As a family name, it is usually a direct adoption of the personal name rather than a place-name or occupation.
History
Historical surname dictionaries describe Israel as a common Jewish surname derived from the personal name. In English-speaking records it appears mainly among Jewish families, though it can also occur more broadly as a given-name-derived surname. Because the biblical name has strong religious resonance, it was especially likely to be adopted or retained in communities with Jewish naming traditions.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The name Israel is one of the oldest continuous biblical personal names to survive in modern use, and it became a surname far later than it first appeared as a given name.
From the historical record
“ISON. Seelve. ISRAEL. A common Jewish surname, from the personal designation. ISTED. Probably of local English origin — Highstead, " the lofty situation." The family have, however, a tradition of a deri- A^ation "fi'om Eysted, a large maritime town in the province of Schonen, in the kingdom of Sweden." It is…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom