Family name origins & meanings
- German and Swiss German : topographic name for someone who lived near a cross set up by the roadside or in a marketplace, from Middle High German kriuz(e) ‘cross’ + the suffix -er denoting an inhabitant.
- German : habitational name for someone from a place called Krögis (recorded as Creuz in 1186), or from some other place similarly named.
- German : in some cases, possibly from Middle High German kriuzære, kriuzer, a term denoting a crusader or Teutonic Knight, an allusion to the symbol of the cross worn on the tunic by such knights.
- German : possibly also a metonymic occupational name for a coiner, from the same word denoting a small coin marked with the symbol of a cross (in full kriuzerpfenninc).
- Jewish (Ashkenazic) : ornamental name from Kreutzer, the name of the coin (see 4).