Family name origins & meanings
- Irish : reduced Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Dreain ‘descendant of Drean’, a byname possibly from dreán ‘wren’. The name is also found in Scotland.
- Irish (Cork) : reduced Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Druacháin (see Drohan).
- English : from Middle English dreine ‘drain’, ‘ditch’, hence a metonymic occupational name for a ditch digger or a topographic name.
- English : variant spelling of Drane.
- French : reduced form of Derain, from Old French dererain ‘last’, hence a nickname for the youngest son of a family.
- French : habitational name from a place in Maine-et-Loire called Drain.