Family name origins & meanings
- German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : occupational name for a tiler, from an agent derivative of Middle High German ziegel ‘roof tile’ (Old High German ziagal, from Latin tegula), German Ziegel. In the Middle Ages the term came to denote bricks as well as tiles, and so in some cases the term may have denoted a brickmaker or bricklayer rather than a tiler.