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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • Jewish (Ashkenazic) : from the Yiddish personal name kayem. This is an apotropaic name, given to a sickly child, based on the Hebrew adjective qayom ‘tough’, ‘enduring’.
  • German (Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg) : from Middle High German kīme ‘sprout’, ‘shoot’, ‘offspring’, sometimes used as a personal name, or from a pet form of Joachim.

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