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Origin / History of the Dunn Name

Found in England, Scotland and Ireland, this name has a number of possible origins.  Firstly, it may be of Anglo-Saxon origin, from the Olde English pre-7^th Century and Middle English ‘dunn’, meaning ‘dull, brown, dark-coloured’, and was a nickname for a man with dark hair or a swarthy complexion.  It may also have originated from an unrecorded Middle English survival of an Olde English byname, ‘Dunna’, meaning dark.  Secondly, the surname is widespread in Ireland, where it is the Anglicized form of the Gaelic ‘O'Duinn, Doinn’, composed of the Gaelic prefix ‘O’, male descendant of, and the personal name ‘Duinn, oinn’, from ‘donn’, black, brown, a byname given to someone with dark hair or swarthy complexion, as above.  In Scotland, the surname also derives from this Celtic origin, but may also be locational from the lands of Dun, Tayside (Angus), which derives from ‘dun’, meaning a fort.  Early recordings include: William Dun, 1180, Gloucestershire; John le Dun, 1198, Hertfordshire; and Adam de Dun, 1255, Scotland. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Gillananaomh O'Duinn, which was dated 1102, in the ‘Ancient Irish Records’.

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