Wan
An English surname that may be a shortened or altered form of an older personal name, though its history is not securely established.
The #5,911 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 52,949 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The surname Wan is treated in one old source as a form related to the personal name Waleran, a name brought to England after the Conquest. That makes the name potentially patronymic, meaning it began as a surname derived from a man's given name. Because the evidence is thin and the spelling is very short, the origin is not certain; in some cases it may also reflect simplification from a longer name or another surname form.
History
The name is rare in English records compared with fuller forms such as Walleran and Warren-related surnames. Because the excerpted evidence comes from a brief historical note rather than a full entry tradition, there is little secure detail on when or where it spread. Modern bearers may therefore come from several unrelated surname lines that converged on the short spelling Wan.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Old surname dictionaries sometimes linked very short names like Wan to medieval given names, even when the surviving evidence was only a line or two.
From the historical record
“WAN 371 WAR of King John. Waleran is an ancient i personal name, wliicli was introduced here ' at the Conquest.”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom