Family name origins & meanings
- German : metonymic occupational name for a gardener or overseer of a garder or enclosure. Originally the term denoted the keeper of an enclosure for deer, later of a vineyard or smallholding, from Middle High German garte ‘garden’, ‘enclosure’. Compare Hofgarten ‘courtyard’, Weingarten ‘vineyard’. Alternatively, it may be a short form of any of the various compound names formed with this element, e.g. Swiss Gart(en)mann, Gartenhauser.
- Jewish (Ashkenazic) : ornamental name from German Garten ‘garden’.