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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • Scottish : nickname for a savage or unpredictable individual, from Middle English, Old French rammage ‘wild’ (applied to a bird of prey), Late Latin ramaticus, from ramus ‘branch’. Compare Savage.
  • French : from a derivative of Old French ramu ‘branch’, with the sense ‘forest’, hence a topographic name for someone who lived by a forest. The term ramage also had a legal sense, denoting the right to cut branches within a manorial forest, and in some cases the surname may have arisen from a nickname for someone who had this feudal right.

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