Reynolds (surname)

Reynolds
Family name
Meaning	"son of Reynold"
Region of origin	England; Liatroim, Ireland
Footnotes: Frequency Comparisons:

Reynolds is a surname in the English language. There are two major lineages of the surname, Irish and English. Among the earliest recorded use of the surname is from the early 14th century; Walter Reynolds of Worcester, England.

In Ireland, the Reynolds surname originates in and around County Leitrim, where the name was rather influential before the seventeenth century. In the Irish language, the surname is rendered Mac Raghnaill, and the name is ultimately derived from the Old Norse Rognvald a Latin borrowing of the two words regal and valor. It was also a surname of Irish Huguenots who came to Ireland from France to evade religious persecution in the 1600s. The original surname being Renault. Throughout Ireland's rich history, the Reynolds family name was a prominent one, and even today, County Leitrim is the principal stronghold of the name, nearly half the people in Ireland so called hailing from that area.

Like many Irish families, the Reynolds began emigrating from Ireland in two fronts, early on in America's history, as they settled in the northeast prior to the American Revolution and during the "Irish Famine", when millions of Irish Catholics came to North America.

There is also a branch of the family which traces its origin to Phillipe D'Reynald, a templar knight who was required to return from the Holy Land and take up the legacy of his deceased brother William. However, this branch is more difficult to locate but is believed to have moved through Normandy and Somerset and on to Ireland.

Some of the better-known Reynolds include:

Reynolds is a patronymic surname meaning "son of Reynold", where the given name of the father, "Reynold", or "Reginald", was a Germanic name composed of , meaning "Powerful Ruler" (possibly an alteration of the Old French name Reinold). The addition of "s" to the father's first name makes Reynolds a simple genitive case patronymic.

Possessors of these names arrived in England with the Norman Conquest of 1066, and early English chronicles indicate a Norman origin, with the name appearing in England from about 1066. Early records of the name mention Willemus filius Raunaldi who was listed in the Domesday Book of 1086, in which "Rainald-us" is a common Christian name. The alternative Saxon origin is less commonly cited (in this etymology, the name is constructed from the Saxon words Rhein, pure, and hold, love).

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