Family name origins & meanings
- German : from Middle High German tafel ‘table’, ‘gameboard’, or ‘panel painting’, a metonymic occupational name for a maker of wooden panels (for tables, carvings, paintings, or room paneling), or alternatively a topographic name for someone who lived by a roadside shrine or other religious motif; such depictions were (and still are common) in Bavaria and Austria. In some instances this may be a reduced form of Tafelmacher, literally ‘panel maker’.
- German : from a field name, Middle High German tavel, for a field in a slightly elevated position.