Family name origins & meanings
- North German, Dutch, and Danish : topographic name or status name for the owner of a farm, or occupational name for someone who worked on the main farm in a community, from Middle High and Low German hof ‘farmstead’, ‘manor farm’, or habitational name from any of the many places named with this word.
- Norwegian : habitational name from any of numerous farmsteads named Hov, from Old Norse hof ‘sacrificial temple’.