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Surname Etymology and Meaning of RING

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Name meanings and etymologies are often disputed. The information here is compiled from freely available sources, and no claims whatsoever are made for accuracy, either historical or etymological.

(origin: Dutch. Local) A Canton; a district of an ecclesiastical congregation.

Source: An Etymological Dictionary of Family and Christian Names With an Essay on their Derivation and Import (1857).

1. English, German, and Dutch: metonymic occupational name for a maker of rings (from Middle English ring, Middle High German rinc, Middle Dutch ring), either to be worn as jewelry or as component parts of chain-mail, harnesses, and other objects. In part it may also have arisen as a nickname for a wearer of a ring.
2. Scandinavian: from ring ‘ring’, probably an ornamental name but possibly applied in the same sense as 3 or 1.
3. German: topographic name from Middle High German, Middle Low German rink, rinc ‘circle’.
4. Irish (eastern County Cork): reduced Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Rinn (see Reen).

Source: Dictionary of American Family Names (2003)