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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • German, Dutch, and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : from Middle High German or Middle Low German banc, or Yiddish bank ‘bench’, ‘table’, ‘counter’, in any of various senses, e.g. a metonymic occupational name for anyone whose work required a bench or counter, for example a butcher, baker, court official, or money changer.
  • Danish and Swedish : topographic name from bank ‘(sand)bank’ or a habitational name from a farm named with this word.
  • Danish and Swedish : from bank ‘noise’, hence a nickname for a loud or noisy person. Compare Bang.
  • Danish : habitational name from the German place name Bänkau.
  • English : probably a variant of Banks.
  • Americanized spelling of Polish Bąk, literally ‘horsefly’; perhaps a nickname for an irritating person.
  • Hungarian (Bánk) : from a pet form of the old secular personal name Bán.

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