The gaines Surname
gaines Name Meaning and History
- English (of Norman origin): nickname for a crafty or ingenious person, from a reduced form of Old French engaine ‘ingenuity’, ‘trickery’ (Latin ingenium ‘native wit’). The word was also used in a concrete sense of a stratagem or device, particularly a trap.
- This surname has also assimilated reduced variants of Welsh Gurganus.
Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
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