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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : variant of Walter, representing the normal medieval pronunciation of the name.
  • English and German (Rhineland) : topographic name for someone who lived by a stretch of water, Middle English, Low German water.
  • Irish : adopted as an English translation of Gaelic Ó Fuartháin (see Foran), being wrongly taken as Ó Fuaruisce ‘son of cold water’.

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