Larkin

Locally spelled Ларькина in RU Russia.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.

Attested across 11 languages in the etymology graph.

Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Larkin, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.

• Arden
• Merritt
• Hollis
• Heron
• Fallon

From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.

Larkin is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

• In English, reduced Anglicized form of Gaelic 6 Lorcain ‘descendant of Lorcdn', a personal name from a diminutive of lore ‘fierce’, ‘cruel’, which was sometimes used as an equivalent to Lawrence.

  as a name·Dictionary of American Family Names

• In English, from a medieval personal name, a pet form of Lawrence, formed with the addition of the Middle English suffix -kin (of Low German origin).

  as a name·Dictionary of American Family Names

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

• Philip Larkinb. 1922GBEnglish writer, jazz critic and librarian (1922-1985)
• Scatman Johnb. 1942USnot in their usual nameAmerican musician (1942–1999)
• Joan Jettb. 1958USnot in their usual nameAmerican rock musician

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

36 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 21 countries.

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

What does the name Larkin mean, and where does it come from?

(i) From the medieval personal name Larkin, literally 'little Lawrence'; (ii) from Irish Gaelic Ó Lorcáin, 'descendant of Lorcán', a name meaning 'little cruel one'. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].

What are other forms of the name Larkin?

In the etymology graph, Lau, Lorenz and Lenz are forms of the same name in other languages.

Which countries have the most people with the surname Larkin?

In the United States, the national register counted about 24 thousand people named Larkin, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled larkin. After it come United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Russia; the country table on this page ranks them.

How common is the name Larkin?

In the United States, the national register counted 23,578 people named Larkin in 2010, about 1 in 14 thousand residents.

How common is Larkin compared with other names?

In Antigua & Barbuda, Larkin is the 63rd most common surname of 30,187 surnames recorded there.