Recorded in several forms as shown below, this ancient surname is English or sometimes Irish. If English it is derived from a diminutive of the pre 10th century Old French personal name Lawrence or Laurence, itself derived from the Roman word meaning "victory". To this has been added the suffix "-kin", meaning a close relative or perhaps son of. If Irish it is a developed form of the Gaelic surname O'Lorcain, the prefix O' meaning "male descendant of", with the suffix Lorcan, originally a personal name meaning fierce or cruel! The surname is recorded in England in the13th century (see below), and another early recording is that of Thomas Lorkyn, in the Subsidy Rolls of Cambridgeshire in 1327. In the modern idiom the spellings include: Larkin, Larking, Larkins and Lorking. Recordings from surving church registers in the city of London include: the marriage of Arthur Larkin and Jone Sade on June 10th 1554, at St. Olave's church, Old Jewry, and the christening of William, the son of Christopher Larkin, on July 7th 1577. Thomas Larkynn, sailed aboard the ship "Truelove" from the port of London bound for Barbados, in June 1635, and Bridget Larkin, a famine emigrant from Ireland, sailed from Liverpool aboard the ship "Yorkshire" bound for New York in April 1846, The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Thomas Lorekyn. This was dated 1296, in the Pipe Rolls of Sussex, during the reign of King Edward 1st of England, 1272 - 1307. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

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