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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • Scottish : habitational name from Govan near Glasgow, first recorded c.1134 as Guven, possibly meaning ‘place of the smith’, although more recently a Cumbric word gir ‘hill’ has been suggested.
  • Scottish : from a reduced Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac a’Ghobhainn ‘son of the smith’, from gobha ‘smith’.
  • Scottish : Christian, widow of Simon de Govane, held lands in Govan in 1293.

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