Family name origins & meanings
- Irish : variant spelling of Dolan.
- Perhaps a reduced form of Slovenian Dolenc or Dolenec (see Dolence).
- German : from a short form of a personal name composed with Germanic theud ‘people’, ‘race’.
- Perhaps an Americanized spelling of Norwegian Døhlen, Dæhlen, habitational names from a number of farmsteads named from Old Norse dalvin (from dalr ‘valley’ + vin ‘meadow’).