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Updated June 9, 2019

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’.

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