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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • Jewish (from the Poznan area, now in western Poland) : variant spelling of Filehne, habitational name for someone from the town called Wielen in Polish (Filehne in German), near Poznan.
  • The patriarch of the family who established the prominent Boston retail department store Filene’s, William Filene (1830–99), was a native of Poznan, Poland, the son of a well-to-do Jewish dealer in ribbons. He left Europe in 1848, at the age of 18, and opened a retail store in Salem, MA, in 1856. His sons Edward Filene (1860–1937) and Lincoln Filene (1865–1957) were not only successful businessmen but also influential thinkers and innovators from a liberal political and economic standpoint.

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