Explore the Family Name Corning

The meaning of Corning

English: 1. in northern England and the northern Midlands perhaps a patronymic or nickname from an unrecorded Old English personal name or nickname Corna + the filial, hypocoristic, or noun-forming suffix -ing. The root of the name could be Old English corna ‘crane, heron’ (applied to someone with long legs). 2. alternatively, perhaps a habitational name from Cooling in Folkestone (Kent), recorded as a surname de Corninge in 1257, de Cornyngg’ in 1334, and perhaps as Corlyng’ in 1379, but the surname seems not to have survived into the modern period. The meaning of the placename is uncertain. History: A William Corning was taxed in Brompton in the North Riding of Yorkshire in 1301, and the surname was still current in northeastern England (Durham and Northumberland) in the 16th and 17th centuries. A Thomas Cornyng is recorded in Askham (Nottinghamshire) in 1388, and is probably an ancestor of Clement Corninge, husbandman of Saundby (8 miles from Askham), who was involved in land transactions there in the 1540s and in Lincolnshire in the 1560s. His descendants occur in neighboring Gainsborough (Lincolnshire, across the river from Saundby) in the late 16th century and perhaps in Wramplingham (Norfolk) in the early 17th century. An early bearer of the name in North America was Ensign Samuel Corning, who is said to have been born in Shelfanger (Norfolk), c. 14 miles from Wramplingham, and who emigrated to Beverly, MA, in 1641. Erastus Corning (1794–1872) moved in 1814 from CT to Albany, NY, where he became a wealthy iron manufacturer and railroad businessman.

Dictionary of American Family Names, 2nd edition, © Oxford University Press, 2022.