Bolin
A surname with several possible roots, most likely an Anglicized or variant form of a Scandinavian name, though the evidence is not fully certain.
The #2,783 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 23,819 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Bolin is not well established in the older surname dictionaries, and the evidence is too thin to give a single confident derivation. In many cases it is treated as a Scandinavian-style surname, possibly connected to a personal name or a place-name element that entered English usage through migration and spelling variation. It may also have been influenced by English surname spelling habits, where short forms and vowel shifts often produced several parallel variants.
History
The surname is most familiar in modern records from North America and from Swedish-heritage communities, which fits a likely Scandinavian background. Because the 19th-century source excerpts provided here do not actually give a clear origin statement for Bolin, its history should be treated as tentative rather than settled. In practice, different Bolin families may have unrelated origins, especially where immigration and spelling changes are involved.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Bolin is a good example of a surname that can look simple but hide multiple family lines with different spellings and possibly different origins.
From the historical record
“of Canterbury. "William Becket, t. Stephen, witne-sed the charter of Bolin^'broke Priory, Line. (Mon. ii. Tv'-j). John B. ^^ave lands to Tup- holme, Line, t. John (Mon. ii. Gl'O). Beckotts. -Se<> Beck KIT.”
— The Norman People and their existing descendants in the British dominions and the United States