Has anyone found Maurans or Merans among the Walloon surnames? I was quoted in a family history as saying I'd been to Ile de Ré and La Rochelle to research the surname MAYRANT but the truth is I was in Geneva and went down to Montpelier. I never looked for Mayrant or variations of the name. Dolly I know from others' research that the ancestors of James Nicholas Mayrant's wife Susannah Gaillard were living in Languedoc during the 16th c ; has anyone found any French research on the MAYRANTs? What was the original spelling of the name? It certainly looks English to me... there was a Josephine Mauran mentioned in John Paul Jones' history in which John Mayrant was mentioned but I've never seen Josephine's parents' names... anyone?