First name origin & meaning: Gaelic: Handsome First name variations: Allan, Alain, Alun, Allon, Alan Last name origins & meanings:
- English and Scottish: from a Celtic personal name of great
antiquity and obscurity. In England the personal name is now usually
spelled Alan, the surname Allen; in Scotland the surname
is more often Allan. Various suggestions have been put forward
regarding its origin; the most plausible is that it originally meant
‘little rock’. Compare Gaelic ailín, diminutive of
ail ‘rock’. The present-day frequency of the surname Allen in
England and Ireland is partly accounted for by the popularity of the
personal name among Breton followers of William the Conqueror, by whom
it was imported first to Britain and then to Ireland. St. Alan(us) was
a 5th-century bishop of Quimper, who was a cult figure in medieval
Brittany. Another St. Al(l)an was a Cornish or Breton saint of the 6th
century, to whom a church in Cornwall is dedicated.
- This name was brought to North America from different parts of the
British Isles independently by many bearers in the 17th and 18th
centuries. Prominent early bearers include Samuel Allen, who settled
in Braintree, MA, about 1629 (died 1648 in Windsor, CT) and whose
descendants included Ethan Allen (1737–89), leader of the Green
Mountain Boys in VT during the Revolution; and William Allen (died
1725), from Dungannon, Ireland, an early Presbyterian settler in
Philadelphia, whose descendants include William Allen (1803–79),
governor of OH.
Famous people with this first name:
Allen Iverson Famous people with this last name:
Tim Allen,
Woody Allen This name appears in the following lists:
Before They Were Famous - Name Changers,
Cowboys and Cowgirls,
Poets
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