CraneEnglish From Middle English crane "crane (bird)", a nickname for a tall, thin man with long legs. The term included the heron until the introduction of a separate word for the latter in the 14th century... [more]
CressGerman, Jewish, Belarusian A variant of the German surname Kress. From the Middle High German "kresse" meaning "gudgeon" (a type of fish) or the Old High German "krassig", meaning "greedy". Can also be from an altered form of the names Erasmus or Christian, or the Latin spelling of the Cyrillic "КРЕСС".
CreteFrench French (adjectival form Crété ‘crested’): nickname for an arrogant individual, from Old French creste ‘crest (of a hill)’ (Late Latin crista), used with reference to the comb of a rooster... [more]
CreusCatalan Means "crosses" in Catalan, the plural of creu. Also compare Spanish Cruces. A famous bearer of this surname is the Spanish footballer Xavi Hernández Creus (1980-).
CristEnglish From Old English Crīst meaning "Christ, the Messiah" (see Christos 1). May have been a nickname for someone who played the part of Christ in a pageant, or a short form of a given name containing it as an element, such as Christian or Christopher.
CrookScottish, English Possible origin a medieval topographical surname, denoting residence from the Middle English word "crok" from the Old NOrse "Krokr". Possibly a maker or seller of hooks. Another possibility is meaning crooked or bent originally used of someone with a hunch back.
CroomEnglish Based on a nickname for a crippled person or a hunchback, derived from Middle English crom(p) and Old English crumb, meaning "bent", "crooked", or "stopping". (See Crump.)
CroomEnglish An occupational surname for a maker, seller, or user of hooks. Derived from Middle English crome or cromb, meaning "hook" or "crook".
CroomEnglish A habitational surname, describing someone who lived in a place named Croom or Croome.
CrumpEnglish Originally a nickname for a crippled or deformed person, from Middle English cromp, crump meaning "bent, crooked, stooping" (from Old English crumb).
CugnoItalian From Sicilian cugnu "wedge", indicating someone who lived on a hill or other topographical "wedge", someone whose occupation involved using an axe, or a person who was considered to be hard or angular in personality or appearance.
CujecCroatian Derived from the word "cuj" which means "listen" or "hear" in English. Likely used to denote someone who was a good listener or was known for their attentive nature.
CullyEnglish From an Irish surname which was derived from Ó Colla meaning "descendant of Colla". The Old Irish name Colla was a variant of Conla (perhaps the same Connla).
CumbaGaulish A topographic name from Gaulish cumba meaning "narrow valley" or a habitational name for a village associated with this name (see Coombe).
CzechPolish, English From the ethnonym meaning "Czech", or from the short form of a personal name such as Czesław. The English surname is borrowed from the Polish surname, or from Czech or Slovak Čech.
DabieAkan (Latinized, Modern) Dabie was originally from the Bono people of Ghana and it is portrayed as a royal name amongst the people. Many individuals who have inherited this name are Chiefs. It's meaning is someone who's a Warrior.
DağlıTurkish Means "mountaineer, highlander" in Turkish.
DağlıTurkish Means "mountaineer, highlander" in Turkish.
DagotFrench Derived from the Old French word "fagot", meaning "bundle of firewood". This was likely given as an occupational surname to a gatherer or seller of firewood.
DahanJewish Occupational name for a painter or a seller of oils from Arabic دُهْن (duhn) meaning "grease, fat, oil".
DainoFilipino From daino ‘fallow deer’, applied as a nickname, perhaps for someone who was timid or fleet of foot, or as a metonymic occupational name for a game warden or hunter.
DalbyEnglish, Danish, Norwegian From any of the locations call Dalby from the old Norse elements dalr "valley" and byr "farm, settlement" meaning "valley settlement". Used by one of the catholic martyrs of England Robert Dalby... [more]
Da LuzPortuguese From a religious epithet meaning ‘of the light’, specifically the Marian name "Nuestra Señora da Luz" (which means "Our Lady of the Light").
DamasFrench French form of Damascus. Famous bearer Léon-Gontran Damas (1912-1978) was a French poet and politican from French Guiana, cofounder of the Négritude Mouvement and author of the collection "Black Label".
DaveyEnglish, Welsh Derived from the given name David. Alternately, it may be a variant spelling of Welsh Davies or Davis, which could be patronymic forms of David, or corrupted forms of Dyfed, an older Welsh surname and the name of a county in Wales.
DazaiJapanese 太宰 is translated as (plump; thick; big around | superintend; manager; rule) it could be roughly translated as meaning "a plump superintend"... [more]
DearyEnglish Nickname for a noisy or troublesome person, from Anglo-French de(s)rei ‘noise’, ‘trouble’, ‘turbulence’ (from Old French desroi). topographic for someone who lived by a deer enclosure, from Old English deor ‘deer’ + (ge)hæg ‘enclosure’.
De AthEnglish Probably a deliberate respelling of Death (i), intended to distance the name from its original signification.
DebbyEnglish "Deep valley" from Old English Dipden.
De BieDutch Means "the bee" in Dutch, a nickname for a beekeeper or a for a busy person, or perhaps a habitational name for someone who lived near a sign depicting a bee.
DebleEnglish This surname is of French derivation and was introduced to Britain by the Normans. It has two possible derivations, the first from the Roman (Latin) 'debil-is', which means literally "poorly" or "weak", and may have been a metonymic for a doctor or healer, whilst the second possible origin is a nickname derivation from the old French 'Theodore' to Tibald and Tibble or Dibble, Deble.
DebyeDutch Variant of De Bie. A notable bearer of the surname was the Dutch-American physicist and physical chemist Peter Debye (1884-1966), born Petrus Debije.
DeetzGerman (Americanized), German Either an Americanized form of German Dietz or a North German surname which is ultimately derived from the same source (from an old personal name formed with Old High German diota "people, nation")... [more]
DefeoItalian This surname is well known in popular culture as the surname of Ronald Defeo who murdered his family in the 1970s while they lived in Amittyville, NY. The surname may mean “Of Ugly”.
DegenGerman, Swiss Means "rapier, small sword, dagger" in German, an occupational name for someone who made rapiers. Alternately, it could be derived from a given name containing Old High German degan "soldier, warrior", such as Degenhard or Herdegen.
De La OSpanish "O" is the archaic form of "Do" - apocope of "donde" - where, the personal name of a woman in the Hispanic world, and a French name of the twelfth century.
De ManDutch Means "the man" in Dutch, from Middle Dutch man "person, man; husband, vassal". Could be a nickname, perhaps to differentiate an older individual (compare Mann), or a habitational name derived from a house name such as De Geleerde Man ("The Learned Man") or De Zwarte Man ("The Black Man").
DemarFrench, English Combination of the French word de, meaning "from" and the Old French word maresc, meaning "marsh".
DerryIrish, English English variant of Deary, or alternatively a nickname for a merchant or tradesman, from Anglo-French darree ‘pennyworth’, from Old French denree... [more]
DesaiIndian, Marathi, Gujarati From a feudal title derived from Sanskrit देश (desha) meaning "country, kingdom" and स्वामिन् (svamin) meaning "owner, master, lord".
De VilPopular Culture Cruella de Vil is fictional character appearing as the antagonist of the novel 'One Hundred and One Dalmatians' (1956) by Dodie Smith, as well as in the 1961 animated movie '101 Dalmatians' and the 1996 live-action movie with the same name... [more]
DevonEnglish Regional name for someone from the county of Devon. In origin, this is from an ancient British tribal name, Latin Dumnonii, perhaps meaning "worshipers of the god Dumnonos".
DevonJamaican Patois (Modern, Rare) The name Devon is of English and Irish origin and means "Warrior of God". This name is also very common in the British West Indies, especially Jamaica.
DevoyEnglish Anglicized form of Gaelic surname Ó Dubhuidhe ‘descendant of Dubhuidhe’, a name probably derived from dubh "dark, black" and buidhe "sallow".
DewanIndian, Pakistani Status name for a treasurer or court official, from Arabic diwan "royal court", "tribunal of justice", or "treasury". Under the Mughal administration in India the dewan was usually the highest official in a state.
DewanIndian, Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, Nepali From a title for a high-ranking government official or minister, derived from Persian دیوان (divan) meaning "royal court, tribunal, ministry, assembly".
DigbyEnglish Derived from the name of an English town, itself derived from a combination of Old English dic "dyke, ditch" and Old Norse býr "farm, town".
DimerGerman (Portuguese-style) Brazilian adaptation of the German surname Diemer; altered for easier comprehension by the Portuguese-speaking population of Brazil.