Avant

The Tribe of Avant of North America. The surname Avant is a patronymic surname created from the Welsh personal name Lefan, or Evan, which is a cognate of the personal name John. "Exceedingly numerous in North and South Wales and in the adjacent English counties of Shropshire and Monmouth. Thence it has spread, but in rapidly diminishing numbers to the midland counties and to the south - west of England. It is absent or singularly rare in the northern counties, a line from the Humber to the Mersey sharply defining its northward extension. Not one of the coast counties, from Norfolk round to the borders of Devon, is represented in my list."