JEFFREY COLEMAN

Variant spelling of Geoffrey, common in the Middle Ages (as reflected in surnames such as Jefferson). This is now the usual spelling of the name both in North America and Britain. Well-known bearers include the novelist and former British politician Jeffrey Archer (b. 1940), the British conductor Jeffrey Tate (b. 1943), and the American soul singer Jeffrey Osborne (b. 1951).

Irish: Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Colmáin ‘descendant of Colmán’. This was the name of an Irish missionary to Europe, generally known as St. Columban (c.540–615), who founded the monastery of Bobbio in northern Italy in 614. With his companion St. Gall, he enjoyed a considerable cult throughout central Europe, so that forms of his name were adopted as personal names in Italian (Columbano), French (Colombain), Czech (Kollman), and Hungarian (Kálmán). From all of these surnames are derived. In Irish and English, the name of this saint is identical with diminutives of the name of the 6th-century missionary known in English as St. Columba (521–97), who converted the Picts to Christianity, and who was known in Scandinavian languages as Kalman.