This name in Ireland is of dual origin. In Ulster it is native Gaelic, Ó Goibín, now found usually but not always without the final s and mainly concentrated in the Inishowen peninsula of Co. Donegal.

This survived in an anglicized form as O Gobban which is of frequent occurence in the Donegal hearth money rolls of 1665and was found in the parish of Stranorlar at least as late as 1751. The first reference to it I have met in Ulster is to John O'Gubuin, Bishop of Derry in 1445. There is, however, an isolated reference to one Maurice O'Goban who was in possession of land in Co. Kilkenny in 1307. In the form Gubbins it is chiefly associated with ‘Co. Limerick where the Gubbins family of Kilfrush has long been prominent particularly in connexion with racing. They. have been established there since the middle of the seventeenth century. I am not absolutely certain but I think they are not of the Ulster Ó Goibin stock, their name being derived from the Old-French Giboin or Old-German Gebawin (gift-friend) and so is akin etymologically to Gibbons. From the eighteenth century onwards such sources as wills indicate that Co. Limerick and adjacent territories may be regarded as the homeland of the Gubbinses, though, as stated above, its continued indigenous association with Inishowen must be remembered.

John Gubbins (fl. early 19th c.), a portrait painter of distinction, was a native of Co. Limerick; Henrietta Gubbins (fl. mid. 19th c.) was also a well known portrait painter.

Gubbin’s (Son): v. Gubbin, and + the English genit. suff. -s.

In Donegal and Derry this is Ó Goibín and Ó Gobáin; but in Co. Limerick, where it is well known, its origin is probably the Old-French Giboin or Old-German Gebawin. SIF 83

May be derived from the old Norman family name of Gobion; or more probably from the French gobin, a hunchback or ill-formed man. This name was borne by a singular tribe or horde of barbarians, who from the XV. to the XVII. century infested the borders of Dartmoor. Fuller, writing of them in 1662, says: —

Contracted from MacGibbon, ‘Gilbert’s Son.' ‘The descendants of Gilbert Fitzgerald, a younger son of John Fitzgerald, ancestor of the houses of Kildare and Desmond, assumed the appellation of MacGibbon'.

Or De Gobion, from Bretagne. Guido Gobio witnessed a charter of Geoffry de Dinan, c. 1070, as one of his knights (Morice, Hist. Bret. Preuves, i. 439), and William Gobio occurs in a charter of the same date (Ibid.). Hugh Gubiun was of Northants 1130 (Rot. Pip.), and 1165 Richard Gubiun, or Gobio, held fiefs in Bedford and Derby from Beauchamp, and Ferrars Earl of Derby (Lib. Niger). The name was corrupted to Gubbins. Sir Hugh Gobyun of York occurs c. 1300 (Parliamentary Writs).

From the Flemish,; a personal name.