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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • Eastern German : from Sorbian, Polish, Czech, and Slovak rak ‘crab’, presumably applied as a nickname or possibly as a metonymic occupational name for someone who sold shellfish.
  • German : nickname from Middle High German rac ‘taut’, ‘stretched’; ‘busy’, ‘free’.
  • German : from a short form of any of various personal names beginning with Rac-.
  • Shortened form of Dutch van Raak, a habitational name from any of various places named De Raak.

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