Family name origins & meanings
- German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : from a derivative of the personal name Jakob or Yakov (see Jacob).
- German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : from German Kober ‘basket’, Middle High German kober, hence a metonymic occupational name for a basket maker or perhaps a nickname for someone who carried a basket on his back.
- German (Köber) : habitational name for someone from a place called Köben.
- Germanized form of Czech Kovář (see Kovar) ‘blacksmith’ or a cognate in another western Slavic language.
- Czech : nickname for a fat man, from kobero ‘pot belly’.