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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : from Old French boeuf ‘bull’, a nickname for a powerfully built man. In some cases it may have been originally a metonymic occupational name for a herdsman. Compare Bouvier.
  • German (Böff) : from the short form of a Germanic personal name with bod- (Old Saxon bodo ‘messenger’), as in Bodo.

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