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Irish surname Higgins

Higgins is the anglicised version of an old Irish surname - O'hUigin - with ancient royal connections.

It comes from the Irish word uiginn, meaning Viking. Bearers of the old name were a sept (followers and extended family of the main 'clan') of the southern Ui Neills who, over time, migrated westwards from the midlands to the province of Connacht where they acquired a reputation as poets in the courts of the regional Irish Chiefs and Lords.

Irish surname Higgins goes global

In 1841 just over 6,000 individuals with the Irish surname Higgins were recorded in the censuses of England, Scotland and Wales. Over the three nations, only 9% gave their birthplace as Ireland, but in Scotland alone the figure was more than 25%.

It is likely that a fair proportion of the Higgins then in England and Wales were not descended from the Irish Higgins; Higgin was a medieval first name in England and later became a surname.

The Scottish population of Higgins may be more likely to be of Irish descent, and  Ancestry UK has an interesting interactive map showing the growth and spread of Higgins in that country from 1841 to 1901; it's worth playing with and noting the slow migration north. Click the image, above.

By 1891, the number of Higgins across Britain had reached 15,145. Some 2,288 of this total (15%) were residing in Lancashire, 1,789 (12%) were in London, 1010 (7%) were in Lanarkshire, and the English counties of Cheshire, Staffordshire, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Kent were home to 2,576 (17%).

The only areas where Higgins had not settled were Yorkshire's three Ridings, Durham, Brecknockshire and Merionethshire in Wales, Forfarshire (Angus) and the far north of Scotland.

By this time, Canada was home to a growing number of Higgins. Their locations in 1871, when the total population bearing this name was 1,368, is shown in the map, below. More than 200 had been born in Ireland.

Jumping forward to 1921's census, there were 2,393 Higgins over a much wider area of Canada. Only 60 had been born in Ireland. The oldest Irish-born was William Henry Higgins, a Baptist living at 1563 5th Avenue, East Vancouver Centre, with his much younger (Methodist) wife, Leah, and their five children.

The youngest child was just eight months old while his father - according to his paper census return - was 85 years old. Born in 1836 in Ireland, he could read and write and had emigrated to Canada in 1885.

Higgins also settled in the United States in big numbers, as you can see from the graph below. What is striking is the tiny proportion of immigrants born in Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) compared with those born on the island of Ireland, suggesting that Higgins families across the USA are more likely to have Irish heritage than England, Scottish or Welsh.

By 1964, the surname appeared in Social Security data for more than 94,100 instances, making it the 240th most common surname in the US. Just under 50 years later, nearly 80 thousand individuals were recorded in the 2010 census and the name ranked in 400th place.