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English: nickname from Middle English king ‘king’ (Old English cyning cyng) perhaps acquired by someone with kingly qualities or as a pageant name by someone who had acted the part of a king or had been chosen as the master of ceremonies or ‘king’ of an event such as a tournament festival or folk ritual. In North America the surname King has absorbed several European cognates and equivalents with the same meaning for example German König (see Koenig ) and Küng French Roy Slovenian Croatian or Serbian Kralj Polish Krol . It is also very common among African Americans. It is also found as an artificial Jewish surname. English: occasionally from the Middle English personal name King originally an Old English nickname from the vocabulary word cyning cyng ‘king’. Irish: adopted for a variety of names containing the syllable rí (which means ‘king’ in Irish). Native American: loose translation into English (and shortening) of a personal name such as Cheyenne Vehoeso ‘Little Chief’ which is from a diminutive of veho ‘chief’. See also Chief . Chinese: variant Romanization of the surname 金 possibly based on the Foochow dialect spoken in Fuzhou in Fujian province see Jin Chinese: Cantonese form of the surnames 景 荊 敬 and 經 also variant Romanization of the surnames 井 see Jing 1-4 and 6.7: Chinese: possibly from Cantonese form of the Chinese name 敬 (meaning ‘esteem respect’) a monosyllabic personal name or part of a disyllabic personal name of some early Chinese immigrants in the US.
Source: Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition, 2022