Family name origins & meanings
- German : occupational name for a steward in charge of the supply and distribution of provisions in a great house or monastery, from an agent derivative of Middle High German spīse ‘food’, ‘supplies’, (via Old High German from a reduced form of Late Latin expe(n)sa (pecunia) ‘(money) expended’).
- Jewish (Ashkenazic) : occupational name for a grocer, from a later semantic development of the same word as in 1.