Family name origins & meanings
- German : metonymic occupational name for a goatherd or nickname for a stubborn person, from Middle High German geiz ‘goat’.
- German : habitational name for someone who lived in a house marked by the sign of the Holy Spirit (normally depicted as a dove), from Middle High German geist ‘spirit’. Both Geist and Heilgeist occur as house signs in Frankfurt am Main in the mid–14th century.
- North German : topographic name for someone who lived in an area of barren sandy soil, Middle Low German gēst.