Jenkins
A common Welsh-English surname meaning “son of John,” ultimately from a medieval pet form of John.
The #102 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 1,387 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Jenkins is a patronymic built from the medieval diminutive Jenkin, itself a pet form of John. The ending -s marks “son of” or “belonging to,” so the name originally meant “Jenkin’s son” or more broadly “descendant of Jenkin.” In turn, Jenkin goes back to John, from Hebrew Yochanan, meaning “God is gracious.”
History
The surname is especially well established in Wales and the English border counties, where patronymics in -s became very common. Historical surname writers often treated Jenkins as part of a large family of John-based names such as Jennings, Jenks, and Jenkinson. It remains one of the more familiar surnames in the English-speaking world, particularly in Britain, Wales, and the United States.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
19th-century surname writers frequently grouped Jenkins with other “John” surnames because the medieval pet form Jenkin was so productive.
From the historical record
“JENDEN. See termination den. JENKINS. See John. JENKINSON. See John. JENKS. See John. JENNER. Pott, in his " Die Personcn- uamen insbesondere die Familiennameu," (Leipzig, 1853), considers this name a cor- ruption of the classical Januarius; but I think the medieval giiwur, a craftsman, engineer, or clever workman…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom