1528: -ing in English Names Feb 18, 2019
While the suffix '-ing' meaning 'small' noly appears at the end of a few words like 'duckling', 'gosling', or 'fledgling', it used to be quite a bit more popular, and it shows today. Many British surnames also come from this root, but this can be harder to discern, because another Old English word meaning 'people of' now resembles this today, such as in the city of Reading, England.
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