John
A rare surname taken directly from the personal name John, rather than from a trade or place.
The #1,034 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 9,204 Americans shares it.
Etymology
John comes from the biblical personal name ultimately from Hebrew Yôḥānān, meaning “God is gracious.” In England it was introduced through Norman French and became extremely common as a given name, but much less common as a surname in its bare form. The surname usually reflects direct adoption of the forename John, while many more family names were formed from it in expanded forms such as Johnson, Jones, Johns, or Johnston.
History
Nineteenth-century surname writers noted that John as an unadorned surname was uncommon, even though it generated a very large family of related surnames. It appears in records and directories mainly as a rare hereditary surname, while most bearers of the name John are known by the given name rather than the surname. Related forms spread widely across Britain and later the English-speaking world.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Lower remarked that John was so common as a forename that the surname form was rare, even though it helped produce many of the most familiar surnames in English.
From the historical record
“among the Jews. JOHN. This baptismal name, -which is of Norman introduction, has rarely passed into a surname. The Lond. Direct, for 1852 affords but one instance. It has been, however, the source, in various modified forms, of a cousideral^le number of names, some of which are amongst the most common in the whole…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom