GOWEN Family History

Recorded in many forms including: Gow, Gowan, Gowans, Gowanson, Gowen, Gowing, Goan, Goane, Goance, Guan, and Going, as well as dialectals such as Quogan, Quoane, Quonne, this is a 'British' surname. Logic would suggest that this surname should be more popular than it is because in pre 7th century Olde English and Gaelic it means "smith". However spelt the derivation is from the word "gobha", meaning an iron worker, and it is recorded in Scotland and Ireland as MacGowan and McGowan, meaning the son of the ironworker.