Family name origins & meanings
- French (Dubé) : of uncertain origin. It may be a habitational name for someone from any of various places called Le Bec, which are named either from Gaulish becco ‘high ground’ or from Germanic bec ‘stream’ (see Beck).
- Breton : nickname meaning ‘pigeon’.
- Eastern German, Sorbian, or other Slavic : from Sorbian or Slavic dub ‘oak’, hence a nickname for a strong or solid man, a topographic name for someone who lived by a prominent oak or in an area where oak trees were abundant, or a habitational name for someone from a place named with this word, for example Dubá or Doubé, both frequent Czech place names.
- North German : variant of Duwe.
- Indian (northern states); pronounced as two syllables : Hindu (Brahman) name meaning ‘one who knows (or has studied) two Vedas’, from Sanskrit dvivedī ‘one who knows two Vedas’, from dvi ‘two’ + veda ‘Veda’, ‘knowledge’. This name is a cognate of Gujarati Dave.
- A Poitevin family of this name had settled in Île d’Orléans before 1670.