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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • German : from the Low German and Frisian personal name Weneke, a short form of any of the compound names beginning with the Old High German element wini ‘friend’.
  • German : topographic name for someone who lived by a turning or bend, Middle High German wenke.
  • German : from Middle Low German wenke, wenneke ‘wide woolen dress’, hence a metonymic occupational name for a maker or seller of such garments.
  • German : nickname from Middle High German wenken ‘to stagger or waver’, probably applied to someone with a peculiar gait, or to a drinker or someone who was indecisive.

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