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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : metonymic occupational name for a chandler, from Middle High German lieht, Yiddish likht ‘candle’, ‘light’. In some instances the German name may have arisen as a nickname from the same word in the sense ‘light’, ‘shining’, and the Jewish name may have been ornamental.
  • German : habitational name from places called Lichta or Lichte, both in Thuringia.
  • Dutch : nickname for a slight man, from licht ‘light (in weight)’.

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