Ming
A rare surname that is probably a shortened or altered form of longer names such as Godalming or Cuming, rather than an independent ancient name in its own right.
The #8,718 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 82,026 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The sources do not give a single secure origin for Ming as a surname. The most plausible explanation is that it arose as a shortened or altered form of a longer name, especially Godalming, a Surrey place-name that older writers explicitly connect with surname forms like Godliman. Another possibility, suggested by comparison with related surname spellings, is that it developed as a clipped variant of Cumming or a similar Norman French family name. Because the evidence is indirect and mixed, the safest conclusion is that Ming is a reduced surname form with uncertain exact derivation.
History
The historical material here mainly appears in discussion of other surnames, where Ming-like endings are mentioned as part of common surname shortening and variation. Nineteenth-century surname writers were already cautious, treating some forms as corruptions or local alterations rather than separate families. In modern usage, Ming is uncommon in England and the United States, and may also appear independently in other naming traditions, though that is not established by these excerpts.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older surname scholars specifically cited Godalming as a place-name that could produce surnames like Godliman, showing how local pronunciation could reshape family names over time.
From the historical record
“OodUm&n. — Local, ' of Godal- ming,' eo. Surrey, formeriy, and still popularly, so called. Lower has Godliman as an existing sur- name in his Patr. Brit. Doubtless he had met with it in the neigh- bouring county of Sussex, where”
— A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames, with special American instances