Collins is an English and Irish surname with two sources: it is either a patronymic from Colin, a medieval pet form of Nicholas, "victory of the people", or an anglicized form of the Irish Ó Coileáin, usually explained as "young hound" or "whelp". Like Palmer and Sutton it is one of the surnames that American parents have turned into girls' names in the 2010s. Collins entered the US top 1000 for girls in 2014, climbed from number 704 in 2015 to a peak of number 239 in 2023 and ranks number 241 in 2025.