names
looking for origin and meaning of the surnames Ganong and Galusha.
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There is a wikipedia article for "Ganong Bros." which includes this claim -
'The Ganongs were descendants of Huguenots who fled persecution in France and emigrated to New Amsterdam in the second half of the 17th century, the family name "Ganong" is a corruption of the original French language name, "Guenon".'
Galusha looks Eastern European, but, as it is traceable back to colonial America that origin seems unlikely. I wonder if this too could be an altered form of a French surname, in this case Galocher (pronounced gal-oh-shay), which would be occupational.
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Ganong does come from Guenon which in turn comes from the Germanic name Wano, from wan- 'hope'. The origin is definitely not guenon 'female monkey'. As for Galusha, the information given at rootsandrelatives.net/showmedia.php?mediaID=460 point to the placename Galuchet in Cher (Centre) as a probable origin.
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Is it possible that Galusha could be something like Native American?
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