Where the Collins name comes from

Collins has more possible parents than most names, and that is the interesting part of it. It can be Colin, an English pet form of the Greek Nicholas. It can be the Irish O Coileain, descendant of Coilean, or the Irish cuilein, darling. It can be the Welsh collen, a grove of hazel trees, or the French colline, a hill. The earliest English record is a Colinus de Andresia, in the Berkshire pipe rolls of 1191.