Wines
A surname that may have begun as a nickname or as a shortened form of a place-name, but its exact origin is uncertain.
The #8,959 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 84,495 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The historical sources do not give a secure explanation for Wines as a surname. It may be connected with the English word "wine"—perhaps as a nickname, or through a place-name containing an old personal name such as Old English "Wine" meaning "friend"—but the evidence is thin. In some cases, surnames like this can also reflect later spelling variation from related names such as Wine, Winer, or place-based forms.
History
The name appears in English-language surname lists and in later American records, including New England material and 19th-century directories. Because the historical excerpts only mention it incidentally, not as a headword with a settled derivation, it is hard to trace a single origin line for all bearers. Some families may have inherited it as an Anglicized or variant spelling of a related name rather than from one fixed source.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
19th-century surname writers often noticed Wines alongside other food-and-drink surnames such as Beer, Sherry, and Weiner in city directories.
From the historical record
“Wynescumbe = Wine's Valley [ the genit., wines, of O.E. wine, friend + cumb (f. Celt.), valley] WINSER for Windsor, q.v.”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)