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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • Dutch and North German : variant of the Biblical personal name Malchus (in Christian tradition believed to be the name of the slave whose ear was cut off by Peter in the garden of Gethsemane).
  • Polish (Małkus) : nickname from the dialect word małkus ‘stag which had shed its horns’.
  • Jewish (eastern Ashkenazic) : metronymic, a variant of Malkin, with the Yiddish possessive suffix -s.

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