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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • German : metonymic occupational name for a producer or seller of must, i.e. unfermented grape juice, Middle High German most (Latin mustum vinum ‘young (i.e. fresh) wine’). The same term was also used to denote perry and cider, since these do not keep well and need to be drunk while still fresh.
  • Dutch : topographic name for someone who lived in a place where moss grew. Compare Moss.
  • Polish and Jewish (eastern Ashkenazic) : topographic name from Slavic most ‘bridge’, or habitational name from any of several places named with this word.

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