Where the Griffin name comes from

Griffin carries two unrelated origins, one Irish and one Welsh. In Ireland the name is an anglicization of Ó Gríobhtha or Ó Grifín. The Welsh Griffin began as a patronymic. That branch sits beside the given name Griffin, drawn from Griffinus, a latinized form of the Welsh name Gruffudd. Cornish had its own related form, Gryffyn.

By 1891 Griffin ranked as the 75th most common surname on the island of Ireland. A 2000 estimate put it 114th in the United States, carried by around two hundred thousand people.