Updated June 9, 2019

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Family name origins & meanings

  • English : nickname, most likely for a tall, thin man with long legs, from Middle English cran ‘crane’ (the bird), Old English cran, cron. The term included the heron until the introduction of a separate word for the latter in the 14th century.
  • Dutch : variant spelling of Krane.
  • English translation of German Krahn or Kranich.
  • The American writer Stephen Crane (1871–1900) was named for a NJ ancestor who was a delegate to the Continental Congress. He was descended from a Stephen Crane who, coming probably from England or Wales, settled at Elizabethtown, NJ, as early as 1665.