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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • Irish : reduced form of McGinn, an Anglicized form of Gaelic Mag Finn ‘son of Fionn’.
  • English : from Middle English gin ‘trick’, ‘contrivance’, ‘snare’, a reduced form of Middle English engin (see Ingham 2), hence a metonymic occupational name for a trapper or a nickname for a cunning person.

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