Gaines Family History

English (of Norman origin): nickname for a crafty or ingenious person, from a reduced form of Old French engaine ‘ingenuity’, ‘trickery’ (Latin ingenium ‘native wit’). The word was also used in a concrete sense of a stratagem or device, particularly a trap. This surname has also assimilated reduced variants of Welsh Gurganus.

Source: Dictionary of American Family Names ©2013, Oxford University Press