Mark Family History

English, Dutch, and Sorbian: from Latin Marcus, the personal name of Saint Mark the Evangelist, author of the second Gospel in the New Testament. This name was also borne by a number of early Christian saints. Marcus is an ancient Roman name of uncertain (possibly non-Italic) etymology; it may have some connection with the name of the war god Mars; compare Martin. The personal name was not as popular in England in the Middle Ages as it was elsewhere in Europe, especially in Italy, where the evangelist became the patron of Venice and the Venetian Republic.

He was allegedly buried at Aquileia. In North America, the English form of the surname has absorbed many cognates and similar-sounding names from other languages, e.g., Polish, Czech, and Slovak Marek, Ukrainian, Slovenian, Sorbian, Rusyn, and Croatian Marko, Greek Markos, and also their patronymics and other derivatives, e.g., Jewish and Slavic Markowicz and Markovich; see also 6 below.

English and German; Dutch (Van der Mark): topographic name for someone who lived on a boundary between two districts, from Middle English merke, Middle High German marc, Middle Dutch marke, merke, all meaning ‘borderland’. The German term also denotes an area of fenced-off land (see Marker) and, like the English word, is embodied in various placenames which have given rise to habitational names.

This surname (in any of the possible senses; see also 5 below) is also found in France (Alsace and Lorraine; compare Marck). English (of Norman origin): habitational name from Marck, Pas-de-Calais, France. Irish (northeastern Ulster): probably a short form of Markey (when not of English origin).

German, Danish, and Dutch: from Marko, a short form of any of the ancient Germanic compound personal names formed with mark ‘borderland’ as the first element, for example Markwardt. Americanized form of French and Breton Marc. Chinese: variant Romanization of the surname 麥, see Mai. Chinese: variant Romanization of the surname 莫, see Mo.