Kind

Family name origins & meanings

• German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : from Middle High German kint, German Kind ‘child’, hence a nickname for someone with a childish or naive disposition, or an epithet used to distinguish between a father and his son. In some cases it may be a short form of any of various names ending in -kind, a patronymic ending of Jewish surnames.
• Dutch : variant spelling of Kint, cognate with 1, also found in such forms as ’t Kind and compounds such as Jongkind.
• English : nickname from Middle English kind (Old English gecynde) in any of its many senses: ‘legitimate’, ‘dutiful’, ‘benevolent’, ‘loving’, ‘gracious’.