SWAINE
Swaine is a surname of Anglo‑Saxon and Old Norse origin, the latter reflected in the original personal name Sveinn, which means “young man” or “servant”. The name entered England with the Viking settlers before the Norman Conquest of 1066, and it has been recorded in several forms across the country for over nine centuries.
The first known appearance of a form of the name is in the “Anglo‑Saxon Wills List of Cambridgeshire”, where Osgot Sveyn is dated to 1045, during the reign of King Edward the Confessor. Subsequent documentation includes Robert Suein in the 1166 Pipe Rolls of Yorkshire and Walter Swayn in the Court Rolls of Suffolk in 1295. By the early sixteenth century the spelling had expanded to include Swayne, Swayn and Swaine; a notable example is Samuel Swaine of Sewardstone, Essex, recorded in 1612 as a descendant of William Swayne, who was granted arms on 29 June 1444.
The surname was among the earliest of English names to appear on the American frontier. Peter Swaine, a passenger on the sloop Batchelor bound for the Leeward Islands and Virginia, was listed in London on 3 May 1679. Its use in the colonies illustrates the migration of families bearing the name from the British Isles to North America in the seventeenth century.
Throughout history the name has undergone many orthographic variations, reflecting both linguistic evolution and regional pronunciation. Common variants include Swain, Swayn, Swayne and Swine, while patronymic forms derived from Norwegian and Swedish usage contain Sweynson, Swenson and Swainson. In some locales the name was linked to the occupation of a swineherd, the Old English word for which is also swan (not to be confused with the bird), or to the role of a young attendant or servant in a feudal household.
In contemporary Britain the name Swaine is uncommon. Occurrences are mainly concentrated in the southern and eastern parts of England, with the largest numbers recorded in Yorkshire, Devon, Cornwall, Lincolnshire, East and West Sussex and London. These figures confirm the distribution suggested by early medieval settlement patterns and the strong Norse influence in the north and east of the country.
Typical given names associated with the Swaine surname
Male
- Andrew
- David
- John
- Mark
- Michael
- Paul
- Peter
- Philip
- Richard
- Robert
- Stephen
Female
- Anne
- Christine
- Jacqueline
- Jane
- Lisa
- Margaret
- Mary
- Rebecca
- Sally
- Sarah
- Susan
- Wendy
Similar and related surnames
Related and similar names are generated algorithmically based on the spelling, and may not necessarily share an etymology.
How to communicate the surname Swaine in...
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There are approximately 1,762 people named Swaine in the UK. That makes it roughly the 4,670th most common surname in Britain. Around 27 in a million people in Britain are named Swaine.
