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’.