Family name origins & meanings
- Dutch and German : from a medieval personal name, probably a short form of Eckhard (see Eckert).
- German : topographic name for someone who lived in a corner house or kept a corner shop, from Middle High German ecke ‘corner’ + the suffix -er, denoting an inhabitant.
- Jewish (Ashkenazic) : variant of Eck 1.
- Jewish (eastern Ashkenazic) : occupational name from a Yiddish dialect eker ‘(wood)cutter’, ‘chopper’.
- Jewish (eastern Ashkenazic) : ornamental name from German Ecker ‘beechnut’.