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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • probably Spanish : unexplained. In Spain this name is mainly found in Andalusia.
  • English : variant spelling of Paine.
  • Southern French : from Latin paganus ‘country dweller’, hence a nickname for a country-born person, or from its later sense of ‘pagan’, ‘heathen’, given to a child not yet baptized. Compare Paine.
  • A Payan, also called Saintonge, from the Saintonge region of France, is documented in Quebec City in 1699.

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