Family name origins & meanings
- German : of uncertain origin. It could be an occupational nickname for a miller, from Middle High German kamprat, Low German kamrat ‘cogwheel (in a mill)’. Alternatively, it could be a variant of Gamradt, Gamroth, an eastern German name of Slavic origin denoting a type of drinking vessel. It has also been suggested that an old personal name Gamerat (reflected for instance in Gahmuret, the name of Parzifal’s father in the courtly epic by Wolfram von Eschenbach) could be the source. A fourth possibility is the vocabulary word Kamerad ‘comrade’, a 16th-century loanword from French camarade, from Italian camerata, originally someone who shared the same room or quarters.