David Kirkland

(male) Biblical name, borne by the greatest of all the kings of Israel, whose history is recounted with great vividness in the first and second books of Samuel and elsewhere. As a boy he killed the giant Philistine Goliath with his slingshot. As king of Judah, and later of all Israel, he expanded the power of the Israelites and established the security of their kingdom. He was also noted as a poet, many of the Psalms being attributed to him. The Hebrew derivation of the name is uncertain; it is said by some to represent a nursery word meaning ‘darling’. It is a very popular Jewish name, but is almost equally common among Gentiles in the English-speaking world. It is particularly common in Wales and Scotland, having been borne by the patron saint of Wales (see Dewi) and by two medieval kings of Scotland.

English (now mainly East Midlands) and Scottish: topographic name for someone who lived on land belonging to the Church, from northern Middle English kirk ‘church’ + land ‘land’. There are several villages named with these elements, for example in Cumbria, and in some cases the surname will have arisen from these. Exceptionally, Kirkland in Lancashire has as its second element Old Norse lundr ‘grove’.