Family name origins & meanings
- English : variant spelling of Messenger.
- German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : occupational name for a brazier, from an agent derivative of Middle High German messinc ‘brass’, German Messing, from Greek mossynoikos (khalkos) ‘Mossynoecan bronze’, named after the people of northeastern Asia Minor who first produced the alloy.
- German : habitational name from Mössingen in Baden-Württemberg (Messingen in the local dialect), which is recorded as Masginga in 789, probably from the personal name Masco + ingen, suffix of relationship.