Meekins
A surname with several possible roots, most likely from a nickname or from the medieval name Mekin/Makin rather than a single settled origin.
The #9,692 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 92,245 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The historical evidence for Meekins is mixed. One line of explanation treats it as part of the medieval surname group Makin/Meakin/Meekins, which may ultimately come from a pet form of a given name such as Maud or Mary; another older explanation links it to a Norman French surname tradition associated with Meschines/Meschin. Because the spellings and medieval forms vary so much, the exact derivation of the modern name is not certain.
History
19th-century surname writers did not agree on the origin of this name, and later references often simply cross-refer Meekins to related spellings such as Meakins and Meakin. The name is established in England and also appears among Irish families, where some genealogists connected it with a Norman pedigree. In modern use it is relatively uncommon in the United States.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older surname books sometimes treated Meekins as a branch of a much larger cluster of spellings, showing how fluid family names could be before spelling was standardized.
From the historical record
“MEEKINO. See Meekins. MEEKINS. "De Meschines (from Bayeux in Normandy), Me.skines, Mey- keyues, Meschin, Mekins, Meekins." This is Sir B. Burlce's pedigree of the name as borne by the Irish family. MEER. Mere, a lake or shallow water. It is found in composition in many names of sheets of water, as Windermere…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom