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Updated August 20, 2024

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Family name origins & meanings

  • Occupational name for a smith or ironworker, from Latin faber ‘craftsman’. This was in use as a surname in England, Scotland, and elsewhere in the Middle Ages and is also found as a personal name. At the time of the Reformation, it was much used as a humanistic name, a translation into Latin of vernacular surnames such as German Schmidt and Dutch Smit.
  • Secondary surname in French Canada for Lefebvre. The name Fabert appears in Kaskaskia, IL, in 1725.

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