Ling
A surname that may come from a place name, or less certainly from the word for heath or the fish name.
The #3,887 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 33,828 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The strongest early dictionary reading treats Ling as a locational surname, probably from one of the places called Ling in Somerset and Norfolk. The name may also have been influenced by the English dialect word for heath, ultimately from Old Norse lyng, “heather.” Some writers also noted the common English word for the fish, but that is usually taken as a secondary possibility rather than the main source.
History
Lower specifically preferred a place-name origin, while also acknowledging the dialect word for heath. In English records, surnames from small localities were often fixed by people moving away from their home parish. The name is relatively uncommon in the modern United States, but it has a long English footprint.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Old dictionaries sometimes listed Ling under both place names and common words, because the same spelling could point to more than one possible origin.
From the historical record
“LINFIELD. See Lindfield. LING. Heath, in some dialects, is so called — also a fish ; but a more probable derivation is from one of the two parishes of Ling in Somersetshire and in Norfolk. LINGARD. INIr. Ferguson thinks that Lingard and Linnegar may be inversions of the 0. nigh Germ. Girlaud, a name com- pounded of…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom