Irish surname search

EWING


Quite a numerous surname in Ireland: in 1866 there were 27 births registered for it, including a few for the synonyms Ewings and Ewin. In 1890 the number was 24, almost entirely in Ulster. There it has since the seventeenth century been associated with the counties of Donegal, Derry, Tyrone and Antrim. Many Ewing wills are recorded for the dioceses comprising these northern areas. The "census" of 1659 is one of the earliest Irish documents to include the name in it Alexander Ewing appeared as one of the leading inhabitants of Letterkenny, Co. Donegal. A few years later it appeared many times in the Hearth Money Rolls for that county. It is probable that Dublin Ewings, like the notable printing and publishing family of the mid-eighteenth century, came there from the north. The origin it goes back to the Greek eugenes (well-born), cognate with the Gaelic Irish coghan. It is stated that Ewing, also found as MacEwing, is a form of the well known Scottish name MacEwen, gaelice Mac Eoghain, (MacKeown).