Where the Jackson name comes from

Jackson is son of Jack, and Jack has a longer history than it looks. It comes from the Middle English Jackin, an alteration of Jankin, which is a diminutive of Jan, itself a form of John by way of the Old French Jehan. A competing account takes it instead from Jacques, the French form of James. For centuries jack was also the plain English word for any man at all, especially a working one, which is how it came to be attached to so many tools and trades.