Family name origins & meanings
- North German : from Low German oss ‘ox’, hence a nickname for a farmer or a stupid person, or in some cases a habitational name for someone living at a house or inn distinguished by the sign of an ox.
- South German (especially southern Bavaria (Allgäu)) : from a short form of the personal name Oswald.
- Dutch (van Oss) : habitational name from Oss in North Brabant.
- Probably an Americanized form of any of a number of common Norwegian habitational names from farmsteads named with Old Norse áss ‘hill’, ‘ridge’ (see Aas).