Family name origins & meanings
- English : metonymic occupational name for a herdsman in charge of cattle or a nickname for someone thought to resemble an ox or a cow, from Middle English neat ‘ox’, ‘cow’ (Old English nēat). The modern English adjective neat (via French from Latin nitidus ‘clean’, ‘shining’) does not occur before the 16th century, after the main period of surname formation.