- English and Scottish: from a Celtic personal name
of great antiquity and obscurity. In England the
personal name is now usually spelled Alan, the surname
Allen; in Scotland the surname is more often Allan.
Various suggestions have been put forward regarding its
origin; the most plausible is that it originally meant
‘little rock’. Compare Gaelic ailín, diminutive of ail
‘rock’. The present-day frequency of the surname Allen
in England and Ireland is partly accounted for by the
popularity of the personal name among Breton followers
of William the Conqueror, by whom it was imported first
to Britain and then to Ireland. St. Alan(us) was a
5th-century bishop of Quimper, who was a cult figure in
medieval Brittany. Another St. Al(l)an was a Cornish or
Breton saint of the 6th century, to whom a church in
Cornwall is dedicated.
Source
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Revised September 07, 2007