GOVAN, GIVEN or GAVIN

Atleast three different spellings appear within the generations of
the same family for the surname which we now write as GAVIN.
An inexperienced researcher might wonder if it was indeed the
same family.

The 1841 census for Crossford, Lanarkshire, Scotland where we
found Robert and Sarah and their young family uses the Govan
spelling. The marriages of their eldest children in Dalhousie
Township use Goven/Govan, however the same marriages
recorded in another source show Giving and Givan. My
grandmother's 1899 marriage record uses Given, while some
other siblings' marriages use Gavin.

It is obvious that variations are often the handiwork of census
enumerators and other clerks who would have to deal with
various accents as well as spell the names to the best of their
knowledge and ability. The spelling of surnames just wasn't
fixed the way it is now.

However, from a cursory search of the origin of the surnames
GOVAN, GIVEN and GAVIN it was learned that all three
probably originate from the same Gaelic (correctly pronounced
Gallic) word for a smith - gobha or gobhain. In Gaelic, the
'bh' combination is pronounced 'v'. There is a parish near
Glasgow called Govan, which might originally have meant the
'place of the smith', but the names appear in both Ireland and
Scotland.