What origin is the last name Jenkinson?

Question:is it Irish or English?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: is it Irish or English?

According to www.ancestry.com its English.
Jenkinson
English: patronymic from Jenkin. Compare Jenkins. The form Jenkinson is rather more common in Lancashire and southern Yorkshire.
Hope this helps.

Any name that has the forms...

jenkinSON, MCjenkins, MACjenkins, jenkinOVICH, jenkinOWITZ, jenkinEZ, jenkinSEN, jenkinPOIKA, jenkinZOON, FITZjenkins, jenkinOV, jenkinI, jenkinOGLY...

and more that I can't think of right now, are derived from patronymics. ALL of them mean "son of Jenkin". Prior to fixed surnames, most areas used patronymics. In many places, the adoption of fixed surnames happened as late as the latter part of the 19th century.

When governments or countries required the adoption of fixed surnames, either through law or custom, many people just kept their current patronymic form but now made it their fixed surname.

It is possible that the first person in your line to have the fixed surname Jenkinson actually had a father named Jenkin. Sometimes people converted their patronymic surname to the similar form of the country of their residence. For example, a Jew living in Poland may have been known as Itsak ben Ibrahim (Isaac son of Abraham). When Poland required Jews to adopt fixed surnames, this person might select Abramowitz which means son of Abraham in Polish just as "ben Ibrahim" meant son of Abraham in Hebrew.