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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English (chiefly Lancashire) : from Middle English cranke ‘lively’, ‘lusty’, ‘vigorous’, hence a nickname for a cheerful, boisterous, or cocky person.
  • English : nickname from cranuc, a diminutive of Middle English cran ‘crane’ (see Crane).
  • Possibly an Americanized spelling of German Kranke, from Low German Kraneke ‘crane’, applied to someone thought to resemble the bird in some way, or a nickname for a poor physical specimen, from Middle High German kranc ‘sickly’, ‘ailing’.

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