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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : occupational name for a sexton or churchwarden, from Middle English sexteyn ‘sexton’ (Old French secrestein, from Latin sacristanus).
  • Irish (Munster and midlands) : reduced Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Seastnáin ‘descendant of Seastnán, Seasnán’, a personal name meaning ‘bodyguard’, from seasuighim ‘to resist’, ‘to defend’.

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