(origin: Local) A name given to a native of that country, which was so called from Hollow-land, because it abounds with ditches full of water. Bailey is of opinion that the Danes who conquered Holland, so called it from an island in the Baltic of the same name, from ol, beer, drink. Why not from Hold land, the land taken and kept, held, governed?

Arthur, William (1857) An Etymological Dictionary of Family and Christian Names. New York: Sheldon, Blakeman. Public Domain.

HOLLAND. It has been stated on the authority of George of Croylaud, who wrote an account of the family in 1550, that the noble and knightly race of this name could trace themselves backwards thirteen generations beyond the Norman Conquest ! For 13 we should probably read 3 ; and there is a more credible genealogy which makes the fundator genfis one Otho, whose son Stephen lloinished under Edw. the Confessor, as lord of Stevingtou, co. Lincoln, and his son, Ralph de Holand, it is said,' continued to hold liis lands by the permission of William the Conquei'or. These lands were in the district of Lincolnshire still known as Holland, but there is also a Holland in Lancashire which belonged to the family. Thej were ennobled by Edward I., and their blood mingled with that of royalty itself by the marriage of Thomas de Holland with the lovely Joane Plantagenet, the Fair Maul of Fent, and granddaughter of King Edward III.

Lower, Mark A (1860) Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom. London: J.R. Smith. Public Domain.