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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • German : probably a metonymic occupational name for a joiner or cabinet maker, from the name of a woodworking tool derived from Middle High German kil ‘wedge’, ‘peg’.
  • German : nickname for a crude person, from a technical term for knotty wood, which must be worked with a Keil ‘wedge’.

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