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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • South German : variant of Vogt.
  • South German : topographic name for someone living near a grass- or moss-covered spot or an enclosure, Middle High German vate, vade.
  • South German : metonymic occupational name for a carpenter who made roof trusses, from phate ‘roof beam’, a derivative of medieval Latin patena.
  • South German : from a cognate of Gothic faths ‘man’, a byname also contained in Vetter ‘paternal uncle’, ‘cousin’.

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