Meaning and Origin of: Warren

German: Watchman; gamekeeper; enclosure

Boy name origins & meanings

  • German : Watchman; gamekeeper; enclosure

Family name origins & meanings

  • English and Irish (of Norman origin) : habitational name from La Varrenne in Seine-Maritime, France, named with a Gaulish element probably descriptive of alluvial land or sandy soil.
  • English : topographic name for someone who lived by a game park, or an occupational name for someone employed in one, from Anglo-Norman French warrene or Middle English wareine ‘warren’, ‘piece of land for breeding game’.
  • Irish : adopted as an Englsih form of Gaelic Ó Murnáin (see Murnane, Warner).
  • The surname Warren was brought to North America from England independently by many different bearers in the 17th and 18th centuries. Richard Warren, a London merchant, was one of the Pilgrims on the Mayflower. John Warren came to Salem, MA, in 1630 on the Arbella, and was the founder of an influential 18th-century Boston family. Arthur Warren emigrated to Weymouth, MA, before 1638.

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