4,219 Global GIVEN Family Members

GIVEN Family History

Recorded as MacGiven, MacGiveen, McGiven, the dialectal McGivena found only in penny numbers, variants such as McGivan, McEvon, McKevin and McAvin, and sometimes without a prefix as in Given, Giveen, Givens, Kevin and others. In spite of the large number of spellings, this is quite a rare Gaelic Irish surname. Originally it was mainly recorded in the county of Donegal, and derives from the ancient pre 10th century surname Mag Dhuibhfhinn. This has the unusual and contradictory translation of the male descendant (Mag) of the dark and fair chief! The translation of Irish surnames does sometimes suggest that more than one person may have been involved in the original creation of the surname perhaps a thousand or more years ago, but never quite so extraordinary as this one.