Family name origins & meanings
- German : nickname for someone farming or occupying newly cleared land, from Middle High German niuwe ‘new’ + swant ‘land cleared of forest’, or a habitational name for someone from Neuenschwand in Bavaria.
- This is an old Bernese name, found in Signau district and in the villages of Niederstocken, Höfen, and Lützelflüh, which had long associations with the Mennonites. Jacob Neiswanger, his wife, and Ann Neiswanger were members of the Codorus, PA, congregation in 1770. A Joseph Niswanger was with a Brethren group that settled in Cape Girardeau Co., MO, about 1790. A Michael Neuenschwander, grandson of Peter Neuenschwander, who had moved with his family to Cortébert in the Jura in 1729, arrived in Wayne Co., OH, in 1823.