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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • Jewish (eastern Ashkenazic) : regional nickname from Yiddish litvak, Polish Litwak ‘Lithuanian’ denoting a Jew who spoke the northeastern dialect of Yiddish, i.e. someone from the historical Grand Duchy of Lithuania (a region much larger than present-day Lithuania, for it included Belarus, parts of northeastern Poland, parts of northern Ukraine, and Latvia).

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