Jin
A surname that is often an Anglicized form of several unrelated Chinese surnames, though in older European records it can also appear as a spelling variant or clipped form in local names.
The #3,421 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 29,596 Americans shares it.
Etymology
In most modern use, Jin is best understood as a transliteration of Chinese surnames written Jin in pinyin, representing more than one Chinese family name with different characters and histories. In older European surname books, however, the sequence "Jin" is also seen as a stray spelling or shortened form in records rather than a clearly established independent English surname. The Irish material in the excerpts is not enough to treat Jin as a standard Irish surname on its own, so the overall origin remains mixed and uncertain.
History
Because the surname is shared across different naming traditions, its history depends heavily on the family line in question. In the United States today, many bearers of Jin have Chinese background, reflecting late-20th-century immigration and the use of pinyin in romanization. The historical dictionaries provided here do not supply a clean standalone etymology, only scattered incidental mentions, so there is no secure single European history to attach to the name.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The same romanized spelling Jin can point to more than one Chinese surname, so two families with the same English spelling may have completely different ancestral characters and meanings.
From the historical record
“FEIN BERG (Ger.) Fair Mount [Ger. fein, f. Fr. Jin, fine -|- Ger. berg, hill] FELDMAN(N (Ger.) Fibld-Man [O.H.Ger. feld + man(n]”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)