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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English (mainly southwest England) : topographic name for someone who lived by a depression or low-lying spot, from Old English holh ‘hole’, ‘hollow’, ‘depression’.
  • Norwegian : habitational name from any of numerous farmsteads, so named from the dative singular or indefinite plural form of Old Norse hóll ‘round hill’, ‘mound’.
  • Shortened form of Dutch van (den) Hole, a habitational name from the common place name Hol, meaning ‘hollow’, ‘depression’, ‘valley’, or a topographic name from the same term.

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