Family name origins & meanings
- German : topographic name for someone who lived by a stream, Middle High German bach ‘stream’. This surname is established throughout central Europe and in Scandinavia, not just in Germany.
- Jewish (Ashkenazic) : ornamental name from German Bach ‘stream’, ‘creek’.
- English : topographic name for someone who lived by a stream, Middle English bache.
- Welsh : distinguishing epithet from Welsh bach ‘little’, ‘small’.
- Norwegian : Americanized spelling of the topographic name Bakk(e) ‘hillside’ (see Bakke).
- Polish, Czech, and Slovak : from the personal name Bach, a pet form of Bartomolaeus (Polish Bartłomiej, Czech Bartoloměj, Slovak Bartolomej (see Bartholomew) or possibly in some cases of Baltazar or Sebastian).