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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English and German : metonymic occupational name for a maker of pins or pegs, from Middle English pin, Middle Low German pin(ne) ‘pin’, ‘peg’. In some cases the German name was an metonymic occupational name for a shoemaker.
  • English (Devon) : from Middle English pinne ‘hill’ (Old English penn), a topographic name or a habitational name from a place named with this word, e.g. Pinn, Pinn Court Farm, or Pin Hill Farm, all in Devon.

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