Family name origins & meanings
- English : from Middle English lamb, a nickname for a meek and inoffensive person, or a metonymic occupational name for a keeper of lambs. See also Lamm.
- English : from a short form of the personal name Lambert.
- Irish : reduced Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Luain (see Lane 3). MacLysaght comments: ‘The form Lamb(e), which results from a more than usually absurd pseudo-translation (uan ‘lamb’), is now much more numerous than O’Loan itself.’
- Possibly also a translation of French agneau.