Loring
Usually a surname taken from Lorraine, the old duchy and region in eastern France.
The #8,802 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 82,996 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Loring is generally explained as a name for someone from Lorraine, the region in northeastern France; older forms are linked to Latin Lotharingia, the land of the Franks of Lothar. In medieval records it appears in forms such as de Loring or le Loreng, showing that it began as a locational or regional surname. Some early writers proposed other explanations, but the Lorraine derivation is the standard one.
History
The name is found in medieval English records by the 13th and 14th centuries, suggesting that it came in with people identified by origin rather than as a native English word. Later bearers in England and America helped establish Loring as a fixed family surname. A few older antiquaries offered alternate ideas, but modern surname dictionaries generally treat it as a Lorraine name.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
An early antiquary cited by Bowditch explicitly glossed Loring as meaning 'de Lotharingia,' i.e. 'from Lorraine.'
From the historical record
“iMraine, iMrraina. — Local, ' of Lorraine * ; v. Loring. 1680. Married- SamwHi Lorase and Roae DnttoD! St. Jaa. Clerkenwell, iii. 1691. William LoraineandAnnSiwtli:”
— A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames, with special American instances