Kerwin
A surname most often treated as a variant of Curwen, with old English and northern British roots.
The #8,635 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 81,078 Americans shares it.
Etymology
In older surname scholarship, Kerwin is commonly linked to Curwen, a name of northern British origin. The deeper root is usually taken to be a place-name meaning roughly “curving river” or “crooked stream,” though the exact pathway from the place-name to Kerwin is not always stated the same way in older works. Some 19th-century writers also treated Kerwin as a phonetic or spelling variant shaped by regional pronunciation.
History
The name appears in English records in forms such as Keruin and Kerwin, especially in London parish registers, suggesting the surname had already spread beyond its original local home by the 17th century. Later surname compilers connected it with Curwen and related forms, and the name also turns up in Scottish and Irish surname indexes as a comparatively uncommon variant. In modern usage it survives chiefly as a relatively rare surname in English-speaking countries.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Some older authorities treated Kerwin as simply another way of writing Curwen, showing how flexible surname spelling could be before standardization.
From the historical record
“Gilbert's Cornwall. KERWIN. The same as Curwen, which see. KESTELL. This family are known to have been resident at Kestell, in the parish of Egloshayle, co. Cornwall, from the time of King John till about the j'ear 1737. C. S. Gilbert's Cornwall. KESTEiST. A contraction of Kesteven, CO. Lincoln, or amis-spelling of…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom