Family name origins & meanings
- Irish : reduced form of O’Slavin, an Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Sléibhín ‘descendant of Sléibhín’, a name probably derived from sliabh ‘mountain’ (perhaps originally a short form of Donnshléibhe; see Dunleavy).
- Jewish (from Belarus) : metronymic from the Yiddish female personal name Slave (from the Slavic word slava ‘glory’, ‘fame’, ‘praise’) + the eastern Slavic possessive suffix -in.