Explore the Family Name Tann

The meaning of Tann

1. African American: at least in part probably from a shortened and altered form of the surname Kecatan, derived from the name of the Kikotan Native American tribe of Algonquian stock that once lived in the vicinity of present-day Hampton, VA. The surname Kecatan was recorded in 1665 in VA. African American surname Tann is, however, (in part) probably also of English origin (in any of the two possible senses; see 2 and 3 below). 2. English (mainly Norfolk): metonymic occupational name from Middle English tan(ne) ‘oak bark’ (Old French tan), i.e. crushed oak bark used in tanning. See also Tanner. 3. English (mainly Norfolk): from the Middle English personal name Tan, a pet form of Andrew. Compare Tandy. 4. German: topographic name for someone who lived in a forest, Middle High German tan. This was originally a distinct word from tanne ‘pine tree’, and denoted a forest of any kind. Inevitably, however, the two became confused, with the result that Tann now denotes only coniferous forests; in this form it is a rather rare and literary word. 5. Chinese: variant Romanization of the surname 譚, see Tan 1. History: Many of the American Tanns are probably descended from John Kecatan, a slave in mid-seventeenth-century VA, born to a West African father and a Native American mother of the Kikotan tribe. Being of mixed race, John Kecatan was able to contract himself out of lifetime servitude, and the court ordered him set free in 1665 or 1666. His son of the same first name (and with a surname recorded as Kicotan) was born free about 1670. John Kecatan’s probable grandson Anthony, born two decades later, already bore the surname Tann.

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