Mullens
A surname most likely meaning “son of Mullen” or “son of Mullin,” with roots in Irish and related Celtic forms.
The #7,859 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 73,336 Americans shares it.
Etymology
This name is usually treated as a patronymic, meaning “Mullen’s son” or “Mullan’s son,” and is closely tied to the Irish names Mullen and Mullin. Those forms are generally traced to a Gaelic personal name, often taken as a diminutive or variant built on a root meaning “bald” or “shaven,” though older writers do not agree in every detail. The surname has also been linked in historical dictionaries to French and Latin surname-formation patterns through related spellings such as Mullins.
History
The name is found in Ireland and in areas of Britain with strong Irish settlement, and it appears in English records in several spellings, including Mullens, Mullins, and Mullen. Historical references place families of the name in Dorset and other local English records by the 16th and 17th centuries. The spelling with -s is one of several surname forms that developed from the same underlying family name.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older surname books explicitly glossed Mullens as “Mullen’s or Mullan’s (son),” showing how strongly the name was already understood as a family-name variant rather than a separate root.
From the historical record
“MULLINEUX J ivTOi'"eux,q.v. MULLENS (A.-Celt.) Mullen's or Mullan's (Son) : V. Mullani. (A.-Fr.-Lat.) v. Mullins^. " MULLET(T (A.-Fr.-Lat.) a nickname from the Mule [Fr. mulet, a dim. f. Lat. mul-us. a mule] MULLIGAN (Celt.) the Little Bald or Shaven One, Monk. Disciple [Ir.”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)