Family name origins & meanings
- English : occupational name, a variant of Penn 1, with the agent suffix -er.
- North German (including Lower Rhineland) : variant of Pfänner, from Pfann ‘pan’; according to Bahlow, a name denoting the owner of a salt-boiling pan.
- German : habitational name from Penna near Leipzig.
- Eastern German : in some cases a topographic name (of Salzburg emigrants) in East Prussia, equivalent of Baintner, Paintner (see Bainter), from Middle High German biunte ‘separate part of land or enclosure belonging to a village’.