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.