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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : nickname for a rotund person, from Middle High German kugel(e), German Kugel ‘ball’, ‘orb’. The term also denoted a hooded cloak or round-topped mountain, and in some cases the surname may have arisen from either of these senses.
  • Jewish (eastern Ashkenazic) : from Yiddish kugl, a term denoting various kinds of pudding.

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