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Updated June 9, 2019

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).

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