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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : nickname for someone of monkish habits or appearance, or an occupational name for a servant employed at a monastery, from Middle English munk, monk ‘monk’ (Old English munuc, munec, from Late Latin monachus, Greek monakhos ‘solitary’, a derivative of monos ‘alone’).
  • North German (Mönk) and Dutch : equivalent of 1, from Middle Low German monik, Middle Dutch moni(n)c, mun(i)c.
  • Irish : translation of Gaelic Ó Muineaog (see Minogue) or Ó Manacháin (see Monahan).
  • Jewish (eastern Ashkenazic) : occupational name for a miller or flour merchant, from Polish mąka ‘flour’, ‘meal’.

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