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Updated June 9, 2019

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’.

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