Plant
An English surname that can reflect a place near plants or groves, though in some families it is a shortened form of Plantagenet.
The #5,890 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 52,705 Americans shares it.
Etymology
In one common explanation, Plant comes from Old French plant, ultimately from Latin planta, meaning a shoot, cutting, or young plant; by extension, it could describe someone living by a plantation, grove, or planted place. Some older English surname writers also treated it as a shortened or altered form of Plantagenet in a few local families. The name may therefore have more than one origin depending on the branch of the family.
History
The surname is recorded in England and later appears in various spellings and local usages. Nineteenth-century surname writers noted that some bearers at Kettering were popularly said to descend from or preserve the royal name Plantagenet, though this was presented as a corruption rather than a standard derivation. In French, related forms such as Duplant were also noted, showing the wider continental background of the name.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older surname books mention the name in connection with plantings and groves, but also with a rather grand local tradition linking some families to Plantagenet.
From the historical record
“PLANT "1 (A.-Fr.-Lat.) Dweller at a Planta- PLANTEJtion or Grove [Fr. plant; Lat. planta, a tviig, graft] Du Plant (Duplant) is not an uncommon French name. PLANTEROSE (A..Fr.-Lat.) Rose-Grovter [Fr. plante, he plants; f. Lat. planta, a”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)Notable people named Plant
- Robert Plant (b. 1948)
Sourced from Wikidata; linked to their Wikipedia page.