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The thorn Surname

thorn Name Meaning and History

  1. English and Danish: topographic name for someone who lived by a thorn bush or hedge (Old English, Old Norse þorn). The name is also found in Sweden.
  2. English: habitational name from a place named with Old English, Old Norse þorn ‘thorn bush’ (see 1), for example Thorne in Kent, Somerset, and South Yorkshire.
  3. North German and Danish: topographic name for someone who lived near a tower, from Middle Low German torn ‘tower’.
  4. German: habitational name from the city of Thorn (Torun in Poland), which was named with Middle High German torn ‘tower’.

Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
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thorn Family Facts

Distribution of thorn Families in the US in 1920
Number of thorn families
 130-258
 44-129		 1-43
 0
Compiled by Ancestry.co.uk from the 1920 US Federal Census records

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The information for this map came from Ancestry.co.uk’s US Federal Census Collection.
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