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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • German and Swiss German (also Knöbel) : from Middle High German knübel, probably a nickname in the sense ‘ankle’. However, the term also denotes a rounded elevation and may therefore also be a topographic name for someone who lived by a knoll.
  • Jewish (Ashkenazic) : ornamental name from German Knobel ‘knot’, ‘node’.
  • Jewish (eastern Ashkenazic) : from Yiddish knobl ‘garlic’.

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