Ryan Smith

(male), (female) From the Irish surname, Gaelic Ó Riain ‘descendant of Rian’. Ryan is associated with the film actor Ryan O'Neal (b. 1941) and is one of several names of Celtic origin that have become very popular throughout the English-speaking world since the 1990s. It is also now well established in North America as a girl's name.

English: occupational name for a worker in metal, from Middle English smith (Old English smið, probably a derivative of smītan ‘to strike, hammer’). Metalworking was one of the earliest occupations for which specialist skills were required, and its importance ensured that this term and its equivalents were perhaps the most widespread of all occupational surnames in Europe. Medieval smiths were important not only in making horseshoes, plowshares, and other domestic articles, but above all for their skill in forging swords, other weapons, and armor. This is the most frequent of all American surnames; it has also absorbed, by assimilation and translation, cognates and equivalents from many other languages (for forms, see Hanks and Hodges 1988).