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The swan Surname

swan Name Meaning and History

  1. Scottish and English: from Middle English swan ‘swan’, hence a nickname for a person noted for purity or excellence (which were taken to be attributes of the swan), or resembling a swan in some other way. This was also an Old Norse and Old English personal name, from which the surname may be derived. In some cases it may be a habitational name for someone who lived at a house with the sign of a swan.
  2. variant of English Swain.
  3. Americanized form of German Schwan.
  4. Americanized form of Norwegian Sveen or Swedish Swahn.

Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
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The swan name in History

A unique volume of fascinating facts, statistics and commentary following the swan family name as far back in history as possible.

swan Family Facts

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Distribution of swan Families in the US in 1920
Number of swan families
 248-493
 83-247		 1-82
 0
Compiled by Ancestry.com from the 1920 US Federal Census records

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Year

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  • You can decide where (in which states) to start searching for swan records.
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The information for this map came from Ancestry.com’s US Federal Census Collection.
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