ADKINS Family History
This long-established surname derives from "Ad(e)", a pet form of the Hebrew given name Adam, meaning "red-earth" (possibly referring to the earth from which God formed the first man in the Old Testament), plus the Olde English pre 7th Century diminutive suffix "-kin". The "d" of "Ad(e)" was sharpened to "t" in certain areas as a result of dialectal influences, and the final "s" indicated the genitive, being a reduced form of "son of". One Adekin filius Turst was noted in the 1191 Pipe Rolls of Norfolk, and a John Adekyn appears in Records of the Estates of Crowland Abbey, Cambridgeshire, dated 1296.