Family name origins & meanings
- German : metonymic occupational name for a blacksmith, from Low German pinken ‘to strike sparks from a stone or metal’.
- German : from Pinker, a personal name of uncertain origin.
- Dutch : from a derivative of Middle Dutch pinken ‘to twinkle’, a nickname for someone who was in the habit of winking or blinking, or possibly had a squint.
- Jewish (Ashkenazic) : ornamental adoption of the German surname, probably because of its similarity to the Yiddish personal name Pinkhes (see Pincus).