Laine Family History

French and West Indian (mainly Haiti) (Laîné): distinguishing epithet from French l'aîné ‘the eldest (son)’ used to identify the older of two bearers of the same name in a family. Altered form (Laîné) of French Lesné which is a cognate of 1 above or perhaps a nickname for a shoemaker from a shortened form of Old French alesne ‘awl’.

Compare Laney French: metonymic occupational name for a worker or dealer in wool from laine ‘wool’ (from Latin lana). Compare Lane 7.

Finnish: ornamental name from laine ‘wave’. It was adopted in huge numbers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries mainly in southern and southwestern Finland at first to replace Swedish surnames and later on some less well-liked Finnish surnames.

It is the prototype of the fashionable nature-related surnames that lack the surname suffix -nen overtaking in popularity the type Virtanen on which they are modelled.

Irish (northern): shortened form of Scottish McLean. English: variant of Lane.