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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • German and Dutch : from Middle Low German, knōp, Middle Dutch cnoop, cnop(pe) ‘swelling’, ‘lump’, ‘knob’, ‘button’, ‘glob’, hence a metonymic occupational name for a maker of buttons, normally of horn; a nickname for a small, rotund man; or a topographic name for someone who lived by a rounded hillock.
  • English : from Middle English knop(pe) ‘knob’, ‘protuberance’, presumably applied as a nickname for someone with a noticeable wart or carbuncle or with knobbly knees or elbows, or possibly to someone who was small and chubby.
  • Jewish (Ashkenazic) : variant of Knop 3.

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