English, Scottish, and northern Irish: patronymic from Jack 1. As an American surname this has absorbed other patronymics beginning with J- in various European languages.
FOREBEARS This extremely common British name was brought over by numerous different bearers in the 17th and 18th centuries. One forebear was the father and namesake of the seventh U.S. president, Andrew Jackson, who migrated to SC from Carrickfergus in the north of Ireland in 1765. The Confederate General Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson came from VA, where his great-grandfather John, likewise of Scotch–Irish stock, had settled after emigrating to America in 1748.