On Monday, September 4, 2000, CONN1966@aol.com wrote: > i am doing a project for school and i need to know what my last name means- > it cummins, please write back soon! It depends on where the family name came from. If it is English, it probably just means "commoner". It has many variants, e.g. Cummings, Cumming, Commons, Commins, etc. If it is something other than English, then it was probably anglicized from something else to one of the English forms. If it is Irish, here is information from "The Dictionary of Irish Family Names" by Ida Grehan (Roberts Rinehart Publishers, 1997): > CUMMINS > ó Comáin ó Cuimín > Commons, Comyns, Hurley > > This surname, which is numerous in every part of Ireland, lends itself to > many interpretations. Some say that is comes from the Irish word _cam_, > meaning crooked. Others, incorrectly, think it came from the word _camán_, > a stick for playing hurling, which caused some people to anglicize their > name to Hurley! If it is French (or English descending from French), then it may come from Robert de Comyn, who came to Great Britain with the Normans in the 11th century. The family came from Comines near Belgium, and claim to descend from Charlemagne. See <http://www.ezonline.com/aem/gen/d0018/g0000045.html> for a French noble from this location. Robert de Comyn's grandson William de Comyn went to Scotland when David I reclaimed the Scottish throne in the 12th century. See http://www.epicuria.fr/comyn/ for the Scottish clan badge for the family that descends from William. Comyn appears to also be an old Scottish name that predates the Normans, see for example <http://burgoyne.com/pages/sjones/html/d0005/g0000077.html#I42622>. Presumably being Celtic, its root may be the same as the Irish above. S R C A cott obert ranston nderson phssra@physics.emory.edu Administrator, {C{offield,ollosky,ranston,ummins},OHGuerns}-L@RootsWeb.com USGenWeb Coordinator, http://www.usgennet.org/usa/oh/county/guernsey/