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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : habitational name from the city of Vienna (German Wien, Yiddish Vin). The place name is first recorded in the Latin form Vindobona, and is of Celtic origin. Before the Holocaust there was a large Jewish population in Vienna. From the 17th century onwards the Leopoldstadt district was officially designated as a Jewish quarter, and many families bearing this surname no doubt originated there.
  • Norwegian : habitational name from any of seven farmsteads in eastern Norway named Vien, earlier Vivin

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