TIPPIN
Tippin is a surname of purely English origin. Its earliest attestations appear in the early thirteenth century in the county of Yorkshire, where a Robert Tipping is recorded in the Subsidy Rolls of 1301 during the reign of King Edward I. The name subsequently spread into neighbouring counties such as Lancashire and the north‑east, reaching a degree of prominence in the town of Preston, Lancashire, where it is well documented in the Preston Guild Rolls that span several centuries.
The etymology of Tippin is primarily rooted in the Old English word tippa, which means “a tip or point”. As a locational surname, it may signify a person who dwelt near a prominent geographical feature such as a hill or peak, or a resident of a place called Tipping. Alternatively, it functions as a patronymic derivation from the pre‑seventeenth‑century personal name Tippa, whose meaning is uncertain but which may have been used as a byname. The name was also recorded in various medieval forms – notably Toppyng in 1397, Typpynge in 1542, and the modern Tipping in 1634 when “William Tipping, of Shaw, husbandman” was listed in the registers.
The surname has evolved over time, giving rise to a small family of spelling variations. The principal variants now in use are Tippin, Tipping and Tippings, though earlier documents show an array of forms such as Tippe, Typp and Typpe. Such orthographic diversity was common in the Middle Ages, reflecting both regional pronunciation differences and the idiosyncrasies of clerks and scribes who were responsible for recording names.
In modern times, the concentration of the surname remains fairly widespread across the British Isles and the United States. Within England it is found in the regions surrounding Manchester, Birmingham and Yorkshire. The name has also been recorded in the Welsh county of Monmouthshire, in the Irish counties of Galway and Londonderry and throughout Ulster, as well as in Scotland particularly in Edinburgh and Glasgow. In the United States early Colonial documentation places bearers of the surname in Virginia and Pennsylvania, and today the name is mainly concentrated in the southern states such as Virginia, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Louisiana and Texas.
While not among the most common surnames, Tippin survives as a distinct family name, its endurance a testament to the historical continuity of English naming practices. The surname remains a valuable link to a centuries‑old tradition of identifying individuals by their geographic or ancestral affiliations.
Typical given names associated with the Tippin surname
Male
- Anthony
- Benjamin
- Christopher
- Colin
- Derek
- Geoffrey
- George
- Mark
- Martin
- Matthew
- Philip
- Richard
- Robert
Female
- Amanda
- Angela
- Anita
- Christine
- Doris
- Dorothy
- Jennifer
- Joy
- Katie
- Kay
- Margaret
- Michelle
- Samantha
- Susan
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 Tippin in...
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There are approximately 98 people named Tippin in the UK. That makes it one of Britain's least common surnames. Only around two in a million people in Britain are named Tippin.
