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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • German (König) and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : from Middle High German kūnic, German König ‘king’, hence a German nickname for a servant or retainer of a king (for example, a farmer on a royal demesne); or alternatively a status name for the head of a craftmen’s guild, or a society of sharpshooters or minstrels. As a Jewish surname, it was ornamental, one of several such Ashkenazic names based on European titles of nobility or royalty.

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