Keeling
Usually an English surname tied to a fish name or a lost local place-name, especially in northern England.
The #3,975 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 34,543 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The surname Keeling is usually explained as a northern English name connected with a fish term, especially a small cod or similar fish called a keeling. Older surname dictionaries also suggest a possible link with a local place-name in Yorkshire, though that derivation is less certain. The evidence points to an English name that began as a nickname or local identifier rather than a personal name.
History
Bardsley records the name in forms such as Keeling and Keelinge and treats it as a northern English surname. He notes both the fish-name explanation and the possibility of a place-name origin, but the fish explanation is the one most often repeated in older scholarship. The name appears in historical records from northern coastal areas, which fits either a fishing nickname or a lost local name.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
19th-century writers thought the original word for the fish had become nearly obsolete, even though the surname survived.
From the historical record
“Gudgeon is an imitative form of Goodson or Goodison (cf. Hodgon for Hodgson, in Cumberland and North Lane). Keeling may represent the now nearly extinct name for a small cod, once so common on the north-east coast; but in the Hundred .yGooglc”
— A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames, with special American instances