Family name origins & meanings
- North German : variant of the habitational name Lewing, from a place near Stade in Lower Saxony.
- North German : patronymic from a personal name (Lehwing or Lewien), formed with Middle Low German lev ‘dear’ + win ‘friend’.
- English : perhaps a habitational name from Levens in Cumbria, probably so named from the Old English personal name Lēofa (+ genitive n) + næss ‘promontory’, ‘headland’.
- Possibly a hypercorrected spelling of Irish Levens, a County Louth name, which Woulfe interprets as an Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Dhuinnshlébhín, a variant of Dunleavy.