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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : metonymic occupational name for a worker in the linen or hemp industry, from Middle English swingle ‘swingle’, a wooden implement used for beating flax or hemp (Middle Dutch swinghel, from the verb ‘to swing’).
  • Possibly an Americanized spelling of German Zwingel, a topographic name from Middle High German zwingel ‘citadel’.

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