Has any one heard of the last name?

Question

CONSTANT???

I am an Irish girl, both parents, grandparents and great grandparents all born and raised in Ireland, yet we(paternal side) have this foreign last name as well as a not so irish look. My mother is your typical irish ( fair skinned, light eyes), whereas my dad has the typical Mediterranean complexion(olive skinned, brown eyes, black hair)so people always assume he's Spanish/ portuguese and are constantly asking where the last name comes from....... So getting back to the question, has anyone heard of it????

not so Irish looking( especially the lips)http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u205/lola89-xx/Picture940-1.jpg

Answer 1

this is a stab in the dark, but it is feasible

CNSTANT   m   English, French

From the Late Latin name Constans, which meant "constant," steadfast".

Answer 2

I often use www.familysearch.org to find possible origins of any name.. primarily since what the LDS church has done is extract original church records from locations around the world.  This makes them primary records.  I found the name in the 1700s and 1600s in England.. but also found the name in numerous other countries.. Spain, Germany.. enough to make me throw my hands up in confusion.  I don't even want to guess (not to mention that the word "guess" gives me the shakes, anyway). *smile*

For starters.. the surname HAS to be through dad's side, with the rare exception of a birth with baby taking mom's name. We'll stick with the normal. You have already done some investigating to determine that grandparents and their parents were all born in Ireland.  I admittedly have zero experience in Irish records (despite my son in law being born in Wicklow).  My advice is to continue working with finding all the ancestors, to the best extent possible, and you may well come across someone who settled in Ireland, even if long long ago. One "advantage" to US work is that, with the exception of Native American lines.. we can only go back to the early 1600s AT BEST, AND know we will hit the immigrant.

http://www.cyndislist.com/ireland.htm

I can offer a list of resources, although I am not familiar with most.  I have stopped to visit genuki (mid page), which seems very solid and scholarly.

The ultimate option for you MAY be DNA tests, which will indicate genetically the very ancient origins that show in your genes. Very possible that it will have the answer for you. In your situation.. I would certainly consider doing dad's side first.. since his seems to be the question mark.

Answer 3

Maybe this will help, it's not such a foreign name if you hop across the Irish Sea to England where it can be found with various spellings.

Constant :

Recorded in the spellings of Constance, Constant, and even Custance, this is a surname is of ultimately Roman origins. It derives from the ancient pre-Christian word 'constantia', meaning constant, which became the female baptismal name 'Constance', although in its original form in England it was spelt 'Custance'. It is also found as the male given name 'Constantine', and the surname can also derive from this source. The name is rarely if ever recorded in England before the Norman Conquest of 1066, which suggests that either it was a Norman introduction, or more likely was associated with the returning Crusaders after their abortive efforts to free the Holy Land from the infidel. Crusader names were often given to the sons of the warriors in commemoration of the fathers deeds of heroism, as well as being associated with saints, popes, and other worthies. Early examples of the surname recordings include Hugo filius Constanti, (Hugo, the son of Constans), in the Domesday Book of 1086, although this recording was not strictly a surname, and it was certainly not hereditary, but Robert Robert Constant in pipe rolls of Lincoln for 1196, and Robert Custance in the pipe rolls of Cambridge in 1207, may well have been both, as was John Constance, also of Cambridge in the year 1279. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of William de Constanc, which was dated 1173, in the register of the abbey of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, during the reign of King Henry 11nd of England', 1154 - 1189

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Constant  

Last name origins & meanings:

French and English: from a medieval personal name (Latin Constans, genitive Constantis, meaning ‘steadfast’, ‘faithful’, present participle of the verb constare ‘stand fast’, ‘be consistent’). This was borne by an 8th-century Irish martyr. This surname has also absorbed some cases of surnames based on Constantius, a derivative of Constans, borne by a 2nd-century martyr, bishop of Perugia. Compare Constantine.

English: perhaps also a nickname from Old French constant ‘steadfast’, ‘faithful’.

Answer 4

Ciara, the name might not indicate anything.

Your father might have had a many times great grandparent from a Mediterranean country that immigrated to Ireland.  That many times great grandparent might not have been a Constant.  

The only thing you can do is to trace your family or have an autosomal DNA test done.   Autosomal is the only test that can show all of your origins.  It won't get into specific nationalities or ethnicities but will indicate things like Northern European, West African, East Asian etc.  However, all people today came from nomads and genealogy DNA indicates, not proves,  we all originated in Africa. If you go back far enough you will find all your family lines eventually go back across Eastern countries.

Usually for genealogy Y & Mitochondrial DNA is used to link people up to other families, but Y DNA goes from father to son only.  Mitochondrial DNA is passed from mother to both sons and daughters but only the daughters pass it on their children.  However, autosomal is the only DNA that relates a female to her father or anybody to the spouses and their families of those in their direct male (YDNA) line and direct female (mitochondrdial DNA) line.