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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • Mayan : nickname from Mayan pech ‘tick’.
  • German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : from Middle High German pech, German Pech ‘pitch’, ‘tar’, presumably a nickname for someone with exceptionally dark skin or hair, or a metonymic occupational name for someone who prepared, sold, or used pitch.
  • Jewish (Ashkenazic) : nickname from German Pech, Polish pech ‘bad luck’.
  • Czech (also well established in German-speaking lands) : from the personal name Pech, a pet form of Petr (see Peter).
  • Catalan : variant spelling of nickname from Catalan pec ‘simple’, ‘naive’.

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