Family name origins & meanings
- English : nickname, most likely for a tall, thin man with long legs, from Middle English cran ‘crane’ (the bird), Old English cran, cron. The term included the heron until the introduction of a separate word for the latter in the 14th century.
- Dutch : variant spelling of Krane.
- English translation of German Krahn or Kranich.
- The American writer Stephen Crane (1871–1900) was named for a NJ ancestor who was a delegate to the Continental Congress. He was descended from a Stephen Crane who, coming probably from England or Wales, settled at Elizabethtown, NJ, as early as 1665.