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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : habitational name from a place so named, for example in Bavaria and the Mosel area.
  • German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : from Middle High German bengel ‘club’, ‘cudgel’ or in a transferred sense ‘hooligan’, ‘lout’, hence a nickname for a boorish man.

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