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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • Dutch and North German (also Röder) : occupational name for someone whose job was to clear woodland for cultivation, from an agent derivative of Middle Dutch roden ‘to grub up’, ‘to clear (undergrowth or woodland)’.
  • German : habitational name from a place called Rod or Rode (see Rod).
  • German (also Röder) : from the old personal name Rodher (a compound of the Germanic elements hrōd ‘renown’ + hari ‘army’).
  • German : occupational name in the Rhineland for someone who used a rod to gauge wine casks.

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